#and I need a gap year to work on certain fundamental skills with everyone

[septembersung]

I’ve made Decisions and Commitments for our homeschool this coming academic year and I know they’re the right ones, but also, here comes the usual post-decision panic.

[maxwell-grant]

What’s the difference between a pulp hero and a super hero?

There is a common sentiment when discussing pulp heroes, when compared to superheroes, that positions the two as if they were separate by entire eras, with pulp heroes being as distinct from the superheroes as the dinosaurs are to mankind. But then again, the dinosaurs never really went away, did they? 

Oh sure, they endured a great extinction, they downsized and ceded their thrones to the tiny little rats that scurried in their shadow, who then grew to become just as big, and then even bigger, but they never went away. They simply adapted into new forms and formed new ecosystems. We call them birds now.

The gap between Superman and The Shadow is merely 6 years, hardly much of a generation. There are those that argue that the Marvel and DC universes still have pulp heroes, that Batman is (or was) one, that characters like The Question and Moon Knight carry on the tradition. We have characters like Hellboy, Grendel, Tom Strong and Zack Overkill as original, modern examples of pulp characters, strongly identified as such. Venture Bros had in 2016 the best modern take on the Green Hornet. Lavender Jack is still going strong. So the idea that pulp heroes are defined solely by being old and outdated isn’t exactly true, when clearly there’s still enough gas in the tank centuries later for stories with them to be told.

Is there any meaningful distinction between pulp heroes and superheroes? If not, can we identify one?

Costume is definitely a big part of it, as Grant Morrison famously argued in his own summation. Of what he considers the big difference between the two: 

“What makes the superhero more current is the performance aspect. That's what The Shadow and those other guys don't really have. Their costumes are not bright, and they don't have their initials on their chest, and everything isn't out front and popping like the superheroes. I think we can relate to that about them because in the world we live in, everyone has a constant need to be a star. I think superheroes are keyed into that parallelism. They're performers. They're rock stars, and they always have been.

And he’s right, to an extent. It’s definitely tied into the central differences between The Shadow and Batman, as I’ve elaborated. While The Shadow was far, far from the only type of pulp hero, the superhero’s costume has long been defined as THE thing that sets it apart from every other type of fictional character. At least, when it comes to American superheroes. 

Because the “criteria” for superheroes is nowhere near as set in stone as some would like to believe. Our basic definition of superheroes is based around comparisons and contrasts to Superman and Batman, and how they fit into what we call “the superhero genre”. The existence of a superhero genre is, in and of itself, debatable, and any working definition for superheroes is inevitably going to have too many exceptions. 

Superheroes are not defined by settings, like cowboys or spacemen, or their profession, like detectives. They can’t be defined by superpowers (Batman), a mission statement, having secret identities (Fantastic Four, Tony Stark), being good people, or good at their jobs. The costume, the closest there is to a true, defining convention, still has a considerable share of exceptions like Jack Knight’s Starman, a great deal of the X-Men who do not wear uniforms, or most superheroes created outside the US. The most basic definition of superhero is of comic book characters with iconic costumes and enhanced abilities who fight villains in shared superhero universes, but even that falls short of exceptions by including characters who are not superheroes (John Constantine and other Vertigo characters, Jonah Hex, the Punisher). Some people would call Goku or Harry Potter or Lucky Luke or Monica’s Gang superheroes, Donald Duck has literally been one. “Character with a distinctive design and unusual talents who fights evil” includes virtually every fictional hero that’s ever achieved a modicum of popularity in a visual medium.

Even telling stories with super characters doesn’t mean you’re going to be writing a superhero story (Joker). Superheroes are not defined by settings and genres, but they can inhabit just about any of them you can imagine. Horror, westerns, gritty crime drama, historical reconstruction, romance, space adventure, war stories, surrealism stories. As Morrison put it, they aren’t so much a genre as they are “a special chilli pepper-like ingredient designed to energize other genres”, part of the reason why they colonized the entire blockbuster landscape.

Aviation became a thing in the war years, so they started producing en masse aviation pulps as a subgenre. Zeppelins became popular, so they had a short-lived zeppelin subgenre. Celebrities starred in their own magazines. The American pulps were different from the German pulps, or the Italian pulps, or the Canadian pulps. In China, wuxia arose at a similar time period and with similar themes and distribution. In Brazil, we have “folhetos”, short, poetic, extremely cheap prose often written about romantic heroes and “cangaçeiros”, the closest local equivalent to the American cowboys. In Japan, “light novels” began life as pulp fiction, distributed in exactly the same format and literally sold as such. Pulp fiction has long outlived any and all attempts to define it as 30s literary fiction only.

Likewise, “pulp” and “pulp heroes” are terms employed very, very loosely. Characters like The Shadow and Doc Savage arrived quite late in the history of pulp fiction. You had characters like Jimmie Dale, Bulldog Drummond, Tarzan, Conan, a billion non-descript trenchcoat guys, and before those the likes of Nick Carter and Sexton Blake, dime novel detectives who made the jump to pulp. You had your hero pulps, villain pulps, adventure pulps, romance pulps, horror pulps, weird menace pulps. Science fiction, planetary romance, roman-era adventures, lost race adventures, anything that publishers could sell was turned into pulp stories starring, what else, pulp heroes. 

How do you make sense of it all?

The main difference to consider is the mediums they were made for. 

Pulp heroes were made for literature, superheroes were made for comic books.

Superheroes NEED to pop out visually, to have bold and flashy and striking designs, because comic books are visual stories first and foremost, who live and die on having attractive, catching character designs and the promise of an entertaining story with them. Pulp heroes, in turn, can often just be ordinary dudes and dudettes and anything in between in trenchcoats or evening wear or furry underwear, or masters of disguise rarely identifiable, because the only thing that needs to visually striking at first glance in a pulp magazine is the cover, so your imagination can get ready to do the rest. Smoking guns, bloody daggers, a romantic embrace, monsters hunched over ladies in peril, incendiary escapes. The characters can look like and be literally anything.

Comic books are a sequential art form where art and writing come together to tell a story, and every illustration must serve the story and vice-versa. It needs to give you an incentive to keep being visually invested in whatever’s going on. Pulp literature stays dead on the page unless animated by your expectations; you may have the illusion of submitting to an experience, but really it’s you expending your imagination to otherwise inert signals. You have to provide the colors and flashy sequences and great meaning yourself, and as a trade, you get much more text to work with in novels than you do in comic books, where the dialogue and narration are fundamentally secondary to the visual, whether it’s a superhero punching stars or a monster covered in blood.

Each art form has its strengths and weaknesses, of course, which are only accentuated when each tries to be of a different kind. There's been pulp heroes that tried making the jump to comics, and comic heroes that made the jump to literature. There’s good, even great examples, of both, but even at their best, there's always some incongruity, because that's not the medium these characters were made for. 

Superheroes are characters defined by being extraordinary. The pulp heroes are too, in many cases, distinguished from their literary antecessors because they were too uncanny and weird, a middleground between the folklore/fairy tale heroes and the grounded detective and adventure characters such as Sherlock, and the later far out superheroes. But they don’t necessarily have to be extraordinary. Sometimes they can very well just be completely ordinary characters, caught in bizarre circumstances and managing them as best they can, or simply using skills available to anyone who puts in effort to do good. Often enough the extraordinary comes in the form of a bizarre villain, or a tangled conspiracy, a monster from outside the world, a unique time period. The extraordinary is there, but it doesn’t have to be in the hero. 

That is, I’d argue, the other big fundamental difference between the two. "Superhero” is a name we use to define a type of character who fits an extraordinary mold, a Super Hero. It’s a genre, it can be every genre, it’s a shared universe and a stand-alone epic. There are guidelines, structures at work here. Grids, page count, illustrators. The Big Two and their domain over the concept. Academic usage of the term, standards that rule the “genre”, when it is defined as a genre. Malleable and overpowering and adaptable and timeless as the superhero may be, it’s still bound by a certain set of rules and trends.

The term “pulp hero” is a term that we use to label just about any character that happens to star in something we recognize as “pulp fiction”, even if it isn’t literally written in pulp, even if it’s decades later. It’s a “metaphor with no brakes in it”. Superheroes can be pulp heroes. The most powerless, unlucky, homeless bum can be a pulp hero, there were entire subgenres of pulp stories based on homeless protagonists or talltale stories told in bars. The cruelest villain can be a pulp hero. Boris Karloff about to stab you with a knife named Ike IS a pulp hero, and so is a space slug on a warpath (look up what happened when Lovecraft and R.E Howard collaborated).

As much as I may dislike the idea of pulp heroes largely only existing in the shadow of superheroes nowadays...that is kinda appropriate, isn’t it? Of course they are going to live and make their homes in the place where the sun doesn’t shine. Where Superman and co would never go to. 

Of course the 90s reboots of these characters failed. Because they tried turning these characters into superheroes, and they are not superheroes. They can visit those world, but they don’t belong in them, or anywhere else. They live in places where the light doesn’t touch, worlds much bigger and darker and more vast than you’d ever think at first glance, worlds that we still haven’t fully discovered (over 38% of American pulps no longer exist, 14% survive in less than five scattered copies, to say nothing of all pulps and pulp heroes outside of America). Not lesser, not gone, despite having every reason to. Just different, reborn time and time again. The shadow opposites.

In short: One is represented by Superman. The other is represented by The Shadow. There are worlds far beyond those two, but when you think of the concepts, those are the ones that things always seem to come back to.

[aatgeog2260]

Human Geography Researcher Potential!

It is wild to think that this is the last blog post in this class! When I chose this class for this semester I wasn’t really excited about it - it was just another required course. I’m happy to say that I really appreciated this course and learned so many things as well as met some more people in geography!

These three things I know for certain about human geography research:

1. Human geography research is not just one thing. It is interconnected with so many other types of geography like the ones presented in our last class and more! My favourite part of this course was attending that final class and watching all of the videos about different subtopics under human geography that students in this class created. It helped identify connections and relations as well as how these are relevant in the real world. When combined together, they form this incredible subject of geography. 

2. It is essential! Human geography research provides patterns and connections between people and places which is vital for living today. It helps us understand the world better which can aid the development of moving forward in a positive direction while respecting the past. In the summary of chapter one in the textbook, it states that “human geographers are bringing new and effective approaches to the fundamental questions of societal structures and individual experiences (Hay 2016 p. 26). Human geography will continue to help find answers to these questions about the world we live in.

3. It is a delicate process. All research is a delicate and complex process as there are numerous things to consider and be aware of, but because human geography deals with real people, their lives, culture, religion, families, etc., I know that we need to be so careful to respect and acknowledge others and who they are. Chapter three of the textbook includes a poem by Barabara Nicholson, titled Something There Is… that highlights the necessity of consent and privacy in research. Just because someone is classified as a researcher does not give them the right to invade a person's life (Hay 2016 p. 48). Below is a sketch I did after I read the poem for the first time: (I am not an artist but it was something I did afterwards to reflect upon the reading)

In general, it’s a researcher looking through a magnifying glass at these people who feel exposed from the “research”. 

These three things I am still confused by:

1. Analyzing surveys. This was one of the larger lectures we had live in class and I think I was having a hard time keeping up after we had so many lectures online in which I would pause, rewind and go back. It was my fault that I never went back to the recording to review so I’d still like to clarify this content. I know that if I were to be asked about each data type: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio, I would not be able to explain them all clearly (Hooykaas 2021 Week 5). 

2. The following phrase was used in the week 6 lecture: “Testimony by itself is a relatively weak form of evidence” (Hooykaas 2021 Week 6). I’m unclear with how or why this is. When we watched documentaries in this course I thought this involved testimony and it was used in research. Maybe they are classified more as a case study. So I wonder, what are the differences between a case study and a testimony? Or is a testimony involved within a case study? For example, in week 3 we watched the documentary Surviving in the Siberian Wilderness for 70 years produced by VICE. I believe that this was a case study, but within it, Agafia Lykovs shares her story. Is the research incomplete unless you unpack and verify this testimony? 

3. I am a little confused with the concept of triangulation. The week 6 lecture provided this image: 

I am not sure if triangulation means having one of these sections, for example, researchers but having multiple of them, or if it is putting these sections together, for example, both multiple researchers along with multiple theories (Hooykaas 2016 Week 6). I have a feeling it would be the second option, simply because if you have multiple researchers then most likely you would get multiple theories and methods, however, I would like to clarify in order to understand it better.

These three things I know for certain about me as a human geographic researcher:

I created a word-cloud of things I’ve felt I’ve gained from this course and things that I enjoyed to help me come up with this section of the blog:

1. There is potential! I remember writing my first blog post in this class and describing how I used to really dislike geography and didn’t want anything to do with it. After this class, I know that I have the potential to become a researcher and possibly find it enjoyable! I surprised myself when I enjoyed working on the DSP. It was fun coding information with all of the colours and although it was challenging to go through the information, condense, review, condense some more, etc., it felt so rewarding to show that final product to others and to think that other people could learn valuable information useful in the world based on what you provided to them! I think if I ever did become a researcher I would enjoy participatory action research since it allows people in the community to become “co-researchers and decision-makers in their own right” (Hay 2016 p. 350). This is really important to avoid that idea of invasion of privacy.

2. I learned more about my interests. I used to think the biggest goal in geography was being able to sing this song called Nations of the World: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pOFKmk7ytU 

I thought research in geography was only about analyzing piles of data and I didn’t realize you could bring creative outlooks to it. I enjoyed the poem we read in the textbook, the documentaries we watched, the opportunity of interviewing for the DSP, the creativity with the final DSP videos, etc. I am intrigued by those forms of media to learn more about and analyze/reflect on geographical concepts.

3. I have more appreciation for geography and others. The topics of critical reflexivity and ethical considerations apply to research in human geography of course but it also floods into all aspects of life. It helps consider other people’s backgrounds, lives, privileges or no privileges, and just creates better communication and respectful relationships between people (Hooykaas 2021 Week 2). It’s also worth thinking about whether you’re an insider or an outsider before you interact with different groups so that you can build a good rapport with trust (Hay 2016 p. 40). 

These three areas I need to spend time developing/learning in order to feel more confident in my skills:

1. Patience. When working on the DSP, after my group and I had found our resources, I just wanted to dive in and write the script! Then we learned about coding in the week 8 lecture and my group members expressed how they would feel better going through the information quite a few times before writing anything. Of course, this worked extremely well even if it was time-consuming! In the future, I would like to make sure I take the process only one step at a time and make sure I hit every part of the research process in order to create a robust and accurate end result. Once again, this applies not only to human geography research but also the real world. Chapter 18 in the textbooks states that “Being in the world requires us to categorize, sort, prioritize, and interpret social data in all of our interactions”  (Hay 2016 p. 391). There is always room for improvement here so that misinterpretations and miscommunication can be avoided.

2. During the research with the DSP, I had a challenging time determining when my group should move forward and how much research we should gather especially with the course deadlines in mind. I know that you can move forward when you reach a “point of saturation” and concepts begin to be repetitive, however, because I am detail-oriented, I was not great with grouping similar ideas if one tiny thing distinguished them (Hooykaas 2021 Week 9). I would like this to improve so that I have a clearer sense of when enough is enough.

3. I would like to clarify and learn more about the list of three things that still confuse me. It’s good to identify what confuses you and what you are unsure of but it’s even better to then go and clarify those things and understand them so that you develop your understanding and skills even more. I want to fill in those gaps of information so that everything makes a bit more sense.

Final Remark

Overall, I am really glad that I took this class and hope everyone has a great end of the semester! It was nice interacting with everyone through these blogs!

-April 

References

Hay, I. (2016). Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Fourth ed., Oxford.

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 2: Philosophy, Power, Politics and Research Design.

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 3: Cross-Cultural Research: Ethics, Methods, and Relationships.

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 5: Literature Review.

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 6: Data Collection - Interviews, Oral Histories, Focus Groups.

Hooykaas, A. (2021). Week 9: Writing Qualitative Geographies, Constructing Geographical Knowledge Data Analysis, Writing, and Re-Evaluating Research Aims Presenting Findings.

Nicholson, Barbara. (2000). Something There Is....

Vice (April 2013). Surviving in the Siberian Wilderness for 70 Years. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt2AYafET68 

[paperstorm]

This is dumb probably but I'm young and idk things and you're always talking about politics ... could you explain the difference between socialism and capitalsim? People in the US are always saying socialism is so bad but i don't really understand why like doesn't it just mean equality?

(this is so long I’m so sorry, no one should ever ask me toexplain anything)

Okay so … first a disclaimer; I am a social/culturalhistorian and not an economic historian so I come at this issue through asocial lens rather than a purely economic one. That being said …. socialism andcapitalism of course are economic systems, but they are far more importantly social systems. They’reboth, but they are social systems first, and the economic aspect builds itselfaround the social. When you boil both systems down to their basic, fundamentalprinciples, their main difference is a discrepancy in how they view what itmeans to be human.

Simply put: capitalism is a system that runs on the basicprinciple that being alive is not something that all humans deserve. The verybasic things that humans need to survive – food, water, shelter, healthcare,etc. – are not things that are provided for everyone in a capitalist system.This is because capitalists quite literally do not believe that every human hasthe intrinsic right to be alive. A capitalist system instead operates on thebelief that the right to be alive is something that humans have to earn. Capitalists believe that the worthof a human life is entirely contingent on that human’s ability to accumulatecapital (whether that’s through the production of goods, or labor, or amarketable skill, etc.) In a capitalist system, a billionaire who works 60hours a week and earns lots of money, has far more of a right to be alive thana homeless person who doesn’t work and earns no money.

Socialism is basically the opposite. Socialists believe thata human’s right to be alive is contingent only on the fact that they are ahuman. They believe that the billionaire who works has no more or less right tobe alive than the homeless person, because they believe life itself is a humanright and shouldn’t depend on whether you can earn money and contribute to thelarger economy. They believe the things required by humans to stay alive (food,water, shelter, healthcare, etc.) are not things that a person should have toearn, but are basic human rights that everyone should have no matter who theyare or how much money they have.

Socialism is not the boogeyman that conservative capitalistsmake it out to be. When these types of (usually corrupt and morally repugnant)individuals describe socialism, they describe a system where every penny thatis earned by every citizen in a country is automatically funneled into a hugegovernment bank account, and then the government divides that amount equallyamong all the citizens, so that the person who works 60+ hours a week is giventhe same amount on a government cheque as the homeless person who works 0hours. This is not socialism. Tbh, this is not anything at all. Right-wingcapitalists have made this up. This system has never existed, and probablynever would exist because it makes no sense. Look to Scandinavian countrieslike Sweden and Finland for examples of good socialism: there are still richand poor people in these countries. Not every single person in these countriesmakes the exact same amount of money. The gross domestic product (GDP) is notdivided up among the citizens and distributed by weekly salaries from thegovernment. But every person is taken care of (more or less), when it comes tobasic human necessities.

There is no perfect economic system. Socialism would notsolve every single problem. Capitalism as an ideologydoes have positives – such as the idea of healthy competition in the free market (in reality themarket is not free and never has been, but as an abstract idea, it’s a nicethought.) But when conservatives treat hypothetical socialism as if it is a bigscary monster that will just make everyone poor, just know that they do thisdisingenuously. They are lying to you. They want tocontinue the status quo because they’re earning tons of money from it. Socialismis not a monster. The fact that certain counties have triedit and fucked it up, is not evidence that the ideology itself is fucked up.It’s extremely easy to argue that America’s version of capitalism is fucked up,and you don’t see any American politicians going after capitalism in the sameway they go after socialism. It is entirely possible to have a flourishingdomestic economy where people can get rich, but that also takes basic care of all citizens. It just requires adramatic departure from the Western cult of individualism that has plagued ourworld for the last several decades.

One final thing to note, is that capitalism is currently incrisis. It’s a huge part of the reason things have been so shitty for the lastnumber of years. A capitalist system requires the rich to get richer and thepoor to get poorer. This is not like an unfortunate consequence of the system,this IS this system. And the system isn’t sustainable. Those two things can’tcontinue in opposite directions into infinity. The poor can’t keep getting poorerforever. There comes a breaking point where they get so poor that they can’tafford to keep themselves alive anymore and they all die, which fucks up therich too because then billionaires have no minimum-wage laborers to exploit forprofit. The wider that wealth gap gets, the closer capitalism gets to collapsingin on itself. And when capitalism is in crisis, historically, the people in power(aka the people with money) blame vulnerable minority groups (racialminorities, religious minorities, immigrants, refugees, etc.) This is done verypurposely. It serves to direct the anger of the uneducated masses at eachother, causing all this in-fighting, so that those people don’t direct their anger at the people in power whose fault itreally is. If there’s anyone reading this who has believed the Western (largelyAmerican) line that capitalism is freedom and socialism is communist Russia,you have been lied to. You have been lied to by a small percentage of peoplewith money and power, who profit off of you believing their lies and furtheringa corrupt, fundamentally unsustainable system.

[orabasesolutions]

Superhuman resources: How HR leaders have redefined their C-suite role

For all the ambiguity caused by the historic events of 2020, one thing is certain: The center of gravity in leadership teams has swung toward the human resources function. Yes, other members of the C-suite, such as finance, marketing, and legal, also have important functional responsibilities that keep the company in full stride. But there’s one person who is being put on the spot to answer the many unexpected questions that companies are facing this year.

These questions are fundamental to the business. Some may be existential. How do companies keep everyone safe as they shift to remote working overnight? How do leaders provide medical, emotional, and mental health support at a distance? How do they gauge performance and develop talent so that people can thrive in this era of uncertainty? What is the company’s stance on social movements such as Black Lives Matter? How is it delivering real change when it comes to inclusion?

All eyes in the room (or on video calls) have turned to the chief human resources officer (CHRO) for the answers. “The financial crisis of 2008 relied on CFOs to help their companies,” said Tanuj Kapilashrami, group head of HR at Standard Chartered bank. “But the companies that will come out stronger from [2020] will be those that have a strong HR function.”

That represents a sea change. For decades, the HR function struggled to be heard in the C-suite, primarily because it was expected to manage only personnel transactions. That wasn’t enough for some CHROs, though. A handful started to redefine the possibilities of the role, including contributing to strategic decision-making. This reinvention also meant that individual CHROs — leaders of a new “superhuman resources” function — took on additional responsibilities, including commercial real estate, customer experience, and organizational transformation. The expansion of the role has led to growing stature within many organizations for one of the more gender-diverse roles in the C-suite. (Of the 44 senior CHROs we recently interviewed, 23 were women and 21 were men.)

The importance of CHROs varies widely from company to company. “Many CEOs say they want a strategic CHRO, but they often don’t think through what it really means,” said Jorge Figueredo, the former longtime head of HR at McKesson Corporation. However, this year has in many ways ended those Hamlet-like musings about what the function should be and should not be. CHROs are in the spotlight, which adds urgency to the question “What sets the great CHROs apart?”

At Merryck & Co., we have a strong vantage point from which to observe the transformation of the role. Since 2010, we have spent considerable time with well over 500 CHROs in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia, discussing their challenges and watching the development of new approaches to their work. And we have seen patterns in the way the most effective ones have developed their roles. Many of the interviews we conducted with CHROs were for our recent Strategic CHRO interview series on LinkedIn. In those conversations, we steered clear of company-specific questions and instead asked about the leaders’ frameworks for doing their job, what they’ve learned, and what CEOs have had to change in order to fully leverage HR.

The CHROs we’ve interviewed and worked with represent, according to their CEOs and boards, some of the highest-impact leaders in the field. We spoke with career HR leaders such as Donna Morris, CHRO of Walmart, and with others for whom the top job was their first role within HR, such as Kathleen Hogan at Microsoft. Collectively, they represent a broad and deep range of experiences, including working through CEO successions; navigating wholesale cultural and business model transformations; translating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) priorities into measurable outcomes; and serving on company boards themselves.

From those conversations, five priorities emerged for maximizing a CHRO’s contributions to the organization. Together, they establish new benchmarks for defining the role and measuring its performance. The complexity of the top HR job is intensifying, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Simply defining exactly what CHROs do remains a challenge. “This role is fascinating because it’s a job almost without a job description,” said Rhonda Morris, the CHRO of Chevron. “We live in a world where virtually everything is gray, rather than black and white.”

To be clear, company-specific attributes will always be contextual and unique. But to help provide more clarity amid the ambiguity — and to provide a useful foundation for HR executives, CEOs, and board directors to build upon — here are the key priority themes that we have identified. We included extended quotes from many CHROs to help bring the themes to life.

Priority 1: Put strategy first, function second

World-class CHROs understand their organization’s strategy, not as passive observers but as contributors. They can see the implications of any new initiatives on revenue streams and contribute to discussions about the competitive landscape. Though HR is categorized as an “enabling” function, the best CHROs are active contributors within C-suite team discussions. Rather than being seen as the office of “no” with a primary focus on risk and compliance, they work to find ways to say “yes” to new initiatives. They bring a unique perspective and expertise for building and executing human capital agendas, and they embrace the label of commercial.

“I am a businessperson who happens to know a thing or two about HR,” said Kirsten Marriner, the CHRO at Clorox, a multinational manufacturer of consumer and professional products based in Oakland, Calif. “That’s how I approach it — how you equip yourself with knowledge, your skills, how you spend your time, how you frame questions, how you think about opportunities, how you think about what you’re here to do. It’s about being clear on the purpose of your HR organization in service of the broader business objectives. So, I wear an enterprise hat first, and I wear a functional hat second.”

Marriner added: “I often say that we’re not here to do good HR for the sake of good HR. It is about driving business outcomes with all the levers and tools that we have at our disposal. The point is to not put yourself in a box. In my first CHRO role, the CEO said early on to the whole executive team — there were eight of us who reported to him — that if somebody walked into our staff meeting and listened to us for a while, they should have no idea who does which jobs, because everybody is contributing to every discussion about the business.”

CHROs have to be able to envision how the strategy will be executed, the talents and skills required to accomplish the work, and the qualities needed from leaders to maximize the organization’s potential. Increasingly, that requires a nuanced understanding of how technology and humans will interact.

“HR leaders sit at a crossroads because of the rise of artificial intelligence and can really predict whether a company is going to elevate their humans or eliminate their humans,” said Ellyn Shook, the CHRO of professional-services firm Accenture. “We’re starting to see new roles and capabilities in our own organization, and we’re seeing a whole new way of doing what we call work planning. The real value that can be unlocked lies in human beings and intelligent technologies working together.”

Priority 2: Optimize the organization, not just processes

CHROs must operate at a slightly higher altitude than their peers on the leadership team to ensure that the different parts of the business work well together. At their best, these leaders view the entire organization as a dynamic 3D model, and can see where different parts are meshing well and building on other parts, and also where there are gaps and seams. The key is to make the whole organization greater than the sum of its parts.

“In the past, HR was about optimizing a process, like incentive plans or talent development plans,” said Susan Podlogar, CHRO of New York–based insurer MetLife. “Now HR is expected to provide macro solutions rather than micro solutions. It’s moving to optimizing the organization, not just a function or process, and moving to maximizing the productivity of the organization as an integrated whole.”

Podlogar cited work she was doing with MetLife’s chief technology officer to identify where tech advances could augment the company’s workforce. They were exploring how to best leverage technology so that a supervisor in the customer service group could monitor, on the basis of length of pauses, tone of voice, and the words customers were using, whether a call was proceeding well or whether someone needed to step in to help. The goal was not to replace the person handling the call, but to support that person’s work.

“Leaders in the past could operate in silos and achieve outcomes, but now optimal solutions come from networks,” Podlogar said. “The problems that businesses are facing are becoming so complex that organizations have to come together much quicker to facilitate a solution. That’s not how many business leaders have operated in the past, but that’s a specialty HR can drive. This is the new way of working.”

And it’s not just a matter of optimizing the strategy for today. The best CHROs also see industry disruptions as opportunities, rather than threats, and look for ways to align the workforce and the business to take advantage of those opportunities.

“As industries overlap more and more, innovation is not happening anymore in silos,” said Paul Baldassari, who led HR for Flex, a U.S.–Singaporean manufacturer of components, for five years. “The strategic challenges for companies are accelerating. Companies get disrupted really fast, but they also have huge growth opportunities if they can react quickly. That’s where the strategic element of the CHRO function comes into play. Innovation is happening between the operations function, the HR function, the engineering function, and the IT function. You need to be able, as a CHRO, to bridge those gaps and have a holistic view about combining all of that and making a new strategic service available in the company. It’s about changing your company’s strategy around talent so that you connect the dots going forward between all those different industries for the ‘people supply chain.’”

Given that framework, perhaps it’s no surprise that Baldassari was asked in 2019 to take over as executive vice president in charge of strategic programs and asset management at Flex. There are also many examples of CHROs who have been given new responsibilities as chief transformation officers, including Brian McNamee of biotech company Amgen and Dermot O’Brien of ADP, which develops human resources management software.

“There are a lot of intricate moving pieces when you cut across the range of things you do in HR — from pension plans in different countries to comp to diversity to leadership,” O’Brien said. “There are all these categories, and they all have to fit together. For me it was a good training ground, because any transformation is a cultural change.”

Priority 3: Bring a viewpoint to the boardroom

Culture has shifted from a “nice to have” conversation to a “need to have” discussion in corporate boardrooms. Many widely publicized corporate scandals can be traced back to gaps between the stated culture and the ways in which people actually operated. A truly healthy culture is a major draw for talent. But a poor culture, insufficiently explored or addressed at the executive and board levels, represents a significant reputational risk for how the company is perceived by consumers as well as prospective recruits and investors.

Boston-based investment firm State Street Global Advisors, for example, said it will be taking into consideration the cultural practices of companies as part of its investing strategy. “We all know the old chestnut that culture eats strategy for breakfast,” the firm wrote in an open letter to boards in 2019. “But studies show that intangibles such as corporate culture are driving a greater share of corporate value, precisely because the challenges of change and innovation are growing more acute.”

Culture issues are leading to harder conversations in the boardroom with directors who want to know more than trending directions on annual employee engagement scores. “When I joined my first board, the topic wasn’t regularly on the board agenda,” said Beth Comstock, former vice chair of Boston-based General Electric, who is currently on the board of Nike. She said a director’s role includes pushing for more detail. “When you ask to see culture surveys, don’t just settle for the aggregate results. Show us the worst ones. Show us the toughest feedback that caused you concern. Ideally, it becomes an ongoing discussion.”

And CHROs are responding with more detailed dashboards for measuring cultural health. “Boards should expect regular reporting and discussions on pulse surveys from employees, alumni surveys that give [them] insights about why people are leaving, and retention rates for high performers,” said Amy Cappellanti-Wolf, reflecting on her work at software services firm Symantec, where she’d led HR for more than five years. “On a quarterly basis, I report out to our board on our culture and our efforts related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. A board has to be asking for more of that information — not to armchair quarterback, but to have a good sense of what’s working and what’s not. Nobody wants to be surprised. I think some boards have been surprised when these ethical concerns or questions about a talent drain come up. You need to have facts and data for the conversation with the board.”

And those conversations become easier when CHROs build relationships with directors outside the regular board meetings. That way, the CHRO establishes his or her reputation as an independent protector of the company. “The head of HR should not only report to the CEO but should also have a core relationship with the board of directors,” said Donna Morris, of Walmart. “The HR function should be pretty independent, just like audit is on the board. If you really are going to act as an ombudsman for the effective operation of your organization, you have to feel like you can push back against your peers and even the CEO.”

Priority 4: View culture as a business driver

The best CHROs excel at translating the values and cultural expectations of the company into crisp, specific, and memorable messaging, and they understand the importance of relentless communication. The strategy has to be as clear to everyone in the organization as it is to the CEO. And these CHROs strive to create processes and a work environment that will help recruit and retain talent. At its best, culture is a virtuous circle, beginning with the articulated values that are reinforced and referenced in rewards and promotions, as well as the practices for hiring, firing, and onboarding.

“I’m crystal clear that the CEO has to own purpose and culture, but heads of HR have this unique vantage point and unique ability to help in that discussion,” said Kevin Cox, who was appointed CHRO at General Electric in 2019. “It’s another reason why it’s so important for the CHRO and CEO to connect. I believe that most CEOs don’t have that complete answer, and I don’t think most CHROs do either. My definition of culture is that it is what leaders do, not what they say. I spend a lot of time trying to pull culture into leadership behaviors at the top of the organization. In a company that is super-clear about its purpose and culture, the head of HR might want to shift focus from developing culture and purpose to thinking about how culture, strategy, and talent actually intersect. The most important Venn diagram to me is the one that shows those three aspects intersecting.”

One of the strongest case studies of culture driving strategy can be found at Microsoft, where Satya Nadella orchestrated a remarkable turnaround when he took over as CEO in early 2014. To help him lead that transformation, he reached out to Kathleen Hogan, who at the time was running Microsoft’s US$5 billion services organization, with about 20,000 employees. To many, the change from managing an important P&L to running HR may have seemed like a demotion. Nadella saw the role as key to delivering his strategy. He called Hogan while she was at her sister’s 50th birthday party, and simply asked, “Will you help me in my new role?” Together, they refashioned the company’s culture messaging.

“The first step in the transformation effort was to honor your past while you define your future,” Hogan said. “It was really important to look at all the things that were incredible about our culture and our history that we didn’t want to walk away from or dismiss. Yet we were clear that we needed to change from a bunch of ‘know-it-alls’ to a bunch of ‘learn-it-alls,’ and that was tricky to navigate because many people wanted a simpler narrative of ‘This is good; that was bad.’ It was really important for us to say, ‘This is how we have to evolve to be relevant in the future,’ versus being dismissive of the past.”

Hogan added: “We also spent nine months defining our culture around the ideas of empathy and learning, which was informed in part by the work by Dr. Carol Dweck on growth mindset. That was our overarching theme with key pillars under it, including being customer-obsessed, [being] diverse and inclusive, [integrating as] One Microsoft, and making a difference. The thing I tried to do was not to say that the people agenda is the HR agenda; it’s the business agenda.”

Priority 5: Model leadership excellence

The best CHROs are easy to collaborate with personally, and they create a function that is easy to work with. They earn respect and credibility because they embody the leadership behaviors that they expect of everyone else.

That starts with viewing an excellent HR function as table stakes, rather than the endgame of their role. They don’t harbor mediocrity within their team; they show an ability to rotate talent in and out, and they groom their team members to be fluent in business discussions with divisional or geographic leaders.

“First, if others in the company still think that your function has trouble hiring people or retaining people effectively or monitoring or addressing employee concerns, then it’s going to be hard for them to think that they should be inviting you in to talk about key organizational changes they need to make,” said Donna Morris, the Walmart CHRO. “Second, you better know your business and not fixate on shiny new programs. Focus instead on what’s going to help your business be really successful. If that means getting rid of some of your shiny programs, you better ’fess up and disrupt the very things you might feel wedded to. Third, you’ve got to role-model everything you’re asking every other leader to do. The bar for you in terms of people leadership is actually higher than the bar for everybody else. What’s your strategy in terms of attracting talent, developing talent, and managing performance? If you’ve got an employee survey, [HR] better not be the lowest on the totem pole in terms of organizational health. People should be envying how you lead.”

Susan Podlogar, the MetLife CHRO, and her peers who are reinventing the role of the chief human resources officer simply are not satisfied with the status quo. “Many people continue the same practices and benchmarking against others and say, ‘OK, that’s good enough, I’ll use it,’” she said. “We’ve got to redefine HR, and, most importantly, we’ve got to redefine HR against our business strategy, the future of work, and the future of the workforce. This is one of the most complex times to be in HR, but one of the most exciting times to be in HR. HR is in a very different place than it’s ever been, because we have practices that don’t fit anymore.”

Our goal in this analysis has not been to provide a rigid playbook for human resources. After all, the frameworks and approaches for doing the job must be customized to the particular needs of an organization. The ambiguity of the role is a challenge, but it is also an opportunity. The insights the CHROs shared above, and the five priorities we have identified, serve as a solid starting point for constructive conversations among HR executives, CEOs, and board directors.

“Many HR executives grew up in a world of process, and that is the world we’re leaving behind,” said Diane Gherson, who recently announced she would be stepping down from her role as IBM’s chief human resources officer. “So it’s important for CHROs to get out in front of that and get into the world of outcomes and particularly experiences that they’re creating — and that means reinventing pretty much everything they do.”

This Article Source is From : https://www.strategy-business.com/article/Superhuman-resources-How-HR-leaders-have-redefined-their-C-suite-role?gko=8be06

[patrycjazawisza-blog]

First Week Summary

I decided the best way to document my journey throughout this internship is by doing a weekly summary. As I am unsure on whether I will be doing something different or fairly similar tasks every day, I came to the conclusion the best way is to briefly write a diary entry each day but collate them altogether into a weekly summary.  Additionally, at the start of each week I will set myself goals that I would like to accomplish by the end of the week. This should help me to break down the report and convert one big task into smaller and more manageable tasks. This method helps with staying focused and staying motivated as it is a way of seeing step-by-step how a certain project will be completed within the given timeframe.

Summary of the first week

Meeting with Professor Donna Lee and Christian Spence.

Prior to starting my internship, I had a meeting with Professor Donna Lee and Christian Spence to agree on the specifics such as when I will officially begin and what kind of tasks, I will undertake and to find out general information regarding where I will be based and who I am supposed to report to.

The initial discussion was about the different projects that are taking place that I could be a part of; FinTech, MMU survey and political approach to do with the Mayor’s decisions. I have been advised to pick one or two of these areas but predominantly work on one project as there is so much depth within each area and so many opportunities that it can be hard to focus on more than one project to be able to achieve real engagement and progression. I am edging towards FinTech the most at the moment, as I would be able to see it through until the end as it is due to be finishing around the end of July. However, the political project seems very interesting too as it is something I have not done before. But a topic which has always been of interest; it is the blend of politics and policy alongside economics. All of these projects involve the use of quantitative and mathematical skills such as data modelling and forecasting, which I have done during the first year of my degree. The meeting lasted around 15-20 minutes with the conclusion of arranging my induction the following Monday where I will meet the team and begin contributing to a project of my choice.

I was quite nervous prior to the meeting; I was unsure what to expect however as soon as I met my supervisors (Christian and Donna) I felt at ease as they were extremely helpful and explained everything very well. After researching Future Economies and the work they do beforehand I was very impressed and eager to be able to participate in the research and different projects the team are involved with. The choice of areas I was presented with that I could be a part of was really interesting and very broad, however I feel as though FinTech could be the most suited project as it is something I have not looked into before and I would be able to see the project right until the end. From what I have been researched into FinTech it is the connection of finance and technology (Zavolokina et al., 2016). Although the sole purpose of applying to the Third Term Programme was based on doing an activity related to my degree, I decided to be open minded and choose a topic which sounds interesting and gives me a lot of different research opportunities. Finance relates to economics quite well however; technology will be a brand-new field I will be exploring and learning about. Furthermore, the specific research report is on the skills gap within the industry sector of FinTech, thus there is a relation of economics as it will involve research into the labour market.

I am very excited to start my internship for around 4-5 weeks. On the other hand, I am slightly nervous about what kind of workload and tasks I will be given. I am ready to face this challenge and do something that is very different and completely out of my comfort zone. I am still unsure on what exactly I will be doing in terms of whether I will be working within a team or on my own and how flexible or inflexible the work I will be doing is going to be. Hopefully, once I start, I will have all the answers to my questions and settle in quickly.

Goals for the week

General research on FinTech industry [achieved]

Find reliable sources [achieved]

Begin drafting a plan (introduction) [achieved]

Day 1: 

My induction day started with a longer catch-up meeting with Christian who briefed me on the project and explained what was expected of me. I have been given my own lanyard to enter the office and a desk where I will be situated for the next four weeks. I have been advised to be in everyday, but due to my commute Christian suggested I have one day off a week to work from home and take a break from the commute. The project that I have been set to do is a written literature report based around the issues of the FinTech and the skills gap. From my own research it has become very apparent that employees with skills such as blockchain abilities, programming skills, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence are in immense demand within the FinTech industry (Iyer, 2018). Additionally, I was introduced to Christian’s research assistant who would be overseeing my report and whom was also working on the FinTech report. Together we brainstormed a basic outline plan of how to structure the report and what to include, as well as looking at the brief introductory draft of the main report to give me an idea of what I should be aiming to achieve. We also discussed the different characteristics of the FinTech industry to establish the essential key facts I should know about the industry.

After the meeting, I spent the rest of my day researching FinTech to understand the basics and familiarise myself with the topic to start briefly planning the beginning of my report. The main focus is on the skills gap; however, it is also important to demonstrate how the skills gap has evolved and what kind of new technologies led to the rise of demand for new these new skills needed within the FinTech industry.

As this was my first day at the office, I was overwhelmed by the amount of people I have met, but I found comfort in seeing that everyone was very welcoming and offered help when needed in the near future. I have realised that in regard to my previous questions mentioned, this project will be quite independent, and I will have to organise my time well so that I finish the whole report by the end of the five weeks. Although I feel at ease in having a fundamental plan and direction of the literature report the topic itself is very limited in the information that is out there. There is no set book or set page to find specific information therefore some of the research I have found comes across as very subjective which does not correspond with the information published by other sources. The next couple of days I will dedicate to sole research on the topic of FinTech to confidently understand all the terminology and gain the ability to use it in my literature report correctly.

Day: 2

I am continuing with working on my part of the research project. So far, I have made good progress with finding good references and making a detailed plan on what I will write about. One of my weaknesses sometimes is not having a thorough plan therefore I am working hard on making sure my plan is well detailed. I am dedicating today to planning further and start writing tomorrow. This means I have nearly accomplished the first two goals of the week. I have done a lot of background research on the FinTech industry, learning about the evolutionary stages of the emergence of FinTech (Arner et al., 2016).

My plan is split up into four sections. Section one is focused on a summary of technology trends in the industry. From what I have already researched on the topic earlier on today; technology trends are found to be the cause of the shift of skills demanded by the industry as new tech demands new skills to be able to use it as efficiently as possible. The second section covers the existing skills gap and what problems employers are faced with in terms of what kind of skills are needed the most but also how to retrain current employees in order to successfully use and implement new technology that is available. Section three and four are focused on what kind of courses Universities provide and whether that will be enough to bridge the skills gap between employees and employers. With this kind of detailed plan, I can confirm I have achieved the third goal of the week which means I am on target, however each section within the plan will need to be detailed with plenty of good and reliable sources and references.

Day: 3 + 4

I have started writing section one of the report and have found it quite challenging. Although I have found a lot of sources which I can use, I have not come across a lot of literature reviews surrounding the subject of the technology trends within FinTech industry which would be the best kind of source for references. However, I have learned and understood the concept of blockchain and the impact it has on the industry as well as Automation Industry 4.0. The current debate surrounding the automation of industry shows a clear division between those who believe automation will result in thousands of job losses to those who believe automation of the industry is the right move as there are certain things a machine cannot do compared to a human being. Therefore, those skills can be used elsewhere rather than wasted on a task a machine could do (Newman, 2018).

Day: 5

My fifth day has been spent working from home, still focusing on the first section of the report. I have around 500 words on section one and will aim to get another 500 written on the other aspects of technology trends (Big Data and contactless payment). I am pleased with the overall outcome so far and have really enjoyed the independence of writing this report. The experience has been similar to writing assignments during the first year of University. However, the challenging aspect is writing about a topic I had no prior knowledge of beforehand. Whereas with assignments it is usually on a topic we have learned about and already possess a substantial amount of information on. This meant that the initial stage of research felt a bit daunting as there was so much reading to get through. Every day this week consisted of a lot of background research and reading on top of planning and writing the report which has been quite intense as the working days are quite long alongside commuting. The freedom I have been given at Future Economies with my working hours has helped enormously as I am able to work from home one day a week. This has definitely helped with my ability to adjust to commuting during the week. It has been a good introduction into seeing what working and commuting life could look like in the future too.

References

Arner, D. W., Barberis. J. and Buckley, R. P. (2016) The Evolution of FinTech: A New Post-Crisis Paradigm. Heinonline. [Online] [Last Accessed 5th July 2019] https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/geojintl47&div=41&id=&page=

Iyer, S. (2018) The 5 Most In-Demand Skills In The FinTech Industry. Instarem. [Online] [Last accessed 5th July 2019] Available: https://www.instarem.com/blog/the-5-most-in-demand-skills-in-the-fintech-industry/

Newman, D. (2018) The Digitally Transformed Workforce: How to Upskill And Retrain To Retain Talent. Forbes. [Online] [Last accessed 5th July 2019] https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2018/03/11/the-digitally-transformed-workforce-how-to-upskill-and-retrain-to-retain-talent/#6f634de91d6f

Zavolokina, L., Dolata, M. and Schwabe G. (2016) Digital Innovation at the Crossroads. AIS eLibrary. [Online] [Last accessed 5th July 2019] Available: https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2016/DigitalInnovation/Presentations/12/

[pauldeckerus]

Guest Blog: Headshot Photographer Chris Gillett

He stared at me with a blank look on his face. It was a look of surprise and embarrassment that betrayed the fact that he had never considered this very fundamental question before. He was a marketer for a large international law firm, and the answer to this question should have informed many different decisions he made in marketing the firm. I wasn’t very surprised by his reaction.

I used to be a trial lawyer and I am accustomed to cross examining people. This felt exactly like that. “Why do you put pictures of the lawyers on your website?” He stared blankly for a moment and then stammered out, “So you know what they look like?” I promise I am not making this up.

This answer isn’t wrong, but it isn’t very good either. Perhaps a better way to say it is, “To put a name with a face.” When I am talking to or emailing Johnny Lawyer, I can picture his lovable mug. Considering how unpopular having your headshot made can be with some people, this does not seem like a fantastic answer.

Another answer I commonly get to that question is, “Well, you just have to. Most people do.” Again, while this isn’t a great answer, it definitely is not wrong. It is true that most people do it, and if you don’t it looks strange, like you are not serious. Have you ever received a friend request on social media such as Facebook or LinkedIn where the requester did not have a profile picture? It’s like that. It’s strange. You wonder if they’re even a real person.

For the clients that I market myself to, there is often a more important reason. That online headshot is going to be the first impression they make on many potential clients. First impressions and the common knowledge surrounding them are one of those things that everybody knows is true and actually is true. The research in this area is overwhelming. First impressions are formed almost instantaneously, visuals are far more important than text, they are very sticky, and first impressions formed online carry over into the real world. Since that is the case, it is a good idea to make that first impression a very strong one.

The majority of headshots I see do not make good first impressions. What really makes me mad about these shots is that it is not the subject’s fault at all. They don’t deserve it. They just have no idea what to do in front of the camera, and of course they should not. It is not their area of expertise. The expressions on their faces when they were being photographed should not have been left up to them.

Just so you don’t think I am beating up on other people, I will use myself as an example.

Ten years ago or so when I was still a lawyer, I received an email from the firm administrator that read, “We are taking headshots for the website. We need you in the auxiliary conference room next Tuesday at 10:20 AM. Wear a dark suit.” Like many people, I was not very excited about this. I felt like I was not photogenic. I generally did not like pictures of myself. There was a time in college that a friend took a picture of me at a party that I thought looked pretty cool, but that did not happen very often. Each headshot opened up my self acceptance gap a little farther.

That evening I stood in my bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror practicing different smiles. Nothing looked very good to me. I figured it was just because I was not photogenic, and I was not photogenic because frankly I was not good looking enough. If I looked like Harrison Ford, I would look good in pictures.

The next morning when I walked into the conference room, the headshot photographer sat me down at the conference table, got my head and my body in certain positions and then left the rest of it up to me. “One, two three; smile.” The result was that I looked insane. It is like the last face you’ll see when you wake up in the middle of the night being strangled to death. It certainly did not make me look like a confident litigator, like a person who you would trust your most important personal legal matters to. Unfortunately, this happens to a lot of people.

There is no magical combination of facial features that makes people photogenic. I have worked with extremely attractive people who were a mess in front of the camera, and I have worked with people who were not as genetically gifted who were amazing. Being photogenic is doing the right things in front of the camera.

Actors and some other folks have a wider range of acceptable expressions, but with my clients, my goal is always to make them look extremely confident. I want them to look like they are good at what they do, like they are experts in their field, and like they’re extremely successful. At the same time, I want them to look like they are nice people and are trustworthy. The resulting poised and pleasant look can (and this is the most important part of this post so far) increase their perceived level of expertise. Unsurprisingly, I photograph a ton of lawyers, and about all a lawyer has to market is a certain perceived level of expertise.

I cannot over emphasize this. I see it all the time. People who should know better, marketers, advertisers, website designers, firm administrators, human resource professionals, the owner’s spouse, or whoever is driving the decision to have headshots made, usually don’t seem to have a strong grasp on why they are doing it.

Here’s one example:

Website Guy: “Photograph their full torsos.”

Gillett: “Why would I do that?”

Website Guy: “So we have several cropping options.”

Gillett: “That really isn’t my question. Why would you show any of these people’s torsos? I am too skinny, and my torso doesn’t do me any good in a headshot. Some of these people look like heart attack candidates. Why would I start down a three year litigation path with someone who looks like he could check out in twelve months? That is one reason not to. The burden of proof, however, is on you. Give me one reason to show full torsos in these headshots.”

Website Guy: “Okay, just give me half torso.”

ANOTHER VIGNETTE:

Another Website Guy:”Photograph them standing behind a conference room chair and leaning on it with their arms like what is on the website now.”

Gillett: “You want me to make these litigators look like someone has them bent over a chair?!? Are you nuts? Have you thought about the message that sends? No one bends these people over a chair. If anything, they bend someone else over a chair.”

Another Website Guy: “…???”

A certain perceived level of expertise is often the only or the main thing that my clients have to market themselves with. Take lawyers for example. Their firms will acquire former Texas Supreme Court justices as partners, purchase expensive artwork for the conference rooms and waiting areas, and spend a ton of money on their offices in general to increase their perceived level of expertise. Despite all of these efforts, many organizations if not most will miss one of the most important and cost effective means of increasing their professionals’ perceived level of expertise, the well made headshot.

Having said all of that, here is a final caveat: not everyone needs to increase their perceived level of expertise. Some people just need a competent headshot. There are a lot of ways to shoot headshots. There isn’t a single right way to do it. This is just my approach.

I think that it is part of my job to be a consultant, a trusted advisor. I try to show them how to look good in headshots and how a good one can benefit them beyond just looking good. How is that accomplished? About three years ago when I had just started shooting headshots full time, I wrote a blog post here for Scott, wherein I heaped hearty approbation on Peter Hurley as he rules. I have learned a ton since then, and I thought it might be fun to mention a few things that have been helpful to me in my mission to make people look great.

ENERGY

When I was young, a woman who used to care for me from time to time would tell me, “Folks is crazy.” That phrase has stuck with me throughout my life. People are nuts, and it’s part of what is fun about headshots. Everybody has the same equipment, but it is all hooked up differently and everyone’s head is metaphorically in a different place. I generally know where I want to take them, but initially I have no idea how. That improvisational element is part of what I love about it.

Some people have an emotional inertia, a chronic stoicism that makes it difficult to get good expressions. They often end up looking miserable or disinterested in headshots. This is tough, because I want them to look magnificent. Have you ever seen Michelangelo’s statue of David in person? In pictures you can get the impression that it’s life sized, but in real life it is enormous and awesome.

I want people to be like that. I do not know a one-size-fits-all solution to people who practice conservation of emotional energy. Sometimes I will say mildly offensive things. Sometimes it is taboo language, sometimes it is extemporaneous humor based on the conversations we have had up until that point, and sometimes it is merely quiet direction. Obviously you have to exercise good judgment in deciding what will work and what you can get away with.

With most people, I find it is sufficient to be aggressively convivial. Thus, it is helpful to have good people skills, and I am always trying to improve mine. You could write a whole book on this topic as it touches on every aspect of your interaction with your client such as your initial impression, setting expectations, and problem-solving during the shoot in addition to the aforementioned verbal prodding. It is helpful to keep the energy in the room high when the client is in front of the camera. Up tempo music doesn’t hurt either.

The more I act like a confident expert in what I do, the more latitude I have. You can imagine if throughout my interaction with them, I supplicate myself, it will be very strange if I start acting super assertive out of the blue. Having said all that, that’s just the way I have dealt with it. I’m sure that there are other and perhaps even better ways to do it, and I am looking for them. In the meantime, I am going to try to be confident and in charge and lead them by the hand to headshot victory as best I can. 

SYNERGY

In the heat of battle, it is easy to miss small problems or to even let small problems that you notice go. In the last post I wrote, I talked about conceptualizing photographic style as a list of things you like and a list of things you don’t like in your work. I have found that there is a synergy in paying attention to as many elements from each list as possible.

For example, it might not seem like pulling a shirt collar up that has sunken down into a sports coat a centimeter or two is a big deal, but when you combine it with dozens of other things you are taking control over, they can all add up to something special. Good headshots don’t just fall out of the sky, and the less chance involved, the better. When you leave elements up to chance, you are essentially leaving it up to your client, and as we have already discussed, most of them have no idea what to do.

LET ‘EM SEE

Finally, I have learned that it is extremely important to review the headshots with my clients while I am working with them. There is not one right way to photograph a headshot. Most of the expression stuff and body language stuff is science, but everything else is a matter of aesthetic opinion upon which reasonable people can disagree. It’s even weirder for the client, because it’s their face, and they have a unique perspective on it and who knows what assorted hangups.

Let’s say that you take a perfect headshot of your client. You’re both agree that it is the platonic ideal of a headshot except… she doesn’t like her hair. You’re finished; she’s not going to like the shot. You have to figure that stuff out while she is there and you can do something about it. 

I hope that these lessons that I have learned don’t seem too prosaic to you. They have been extremely important to me. As a parting thought, I will mention that I try to stay really disciplined about my continuing headshot education. Headshots seem so simple, but I am continually learning new things. I see evidence that it helps me.

When I was reviewing images to include in this article, it didn’t take more than a few months in the past to get to work that made me cringe. Some folks have a hard time with criticism of their work. I think that it is the Dunning Kruger effect in action. If you are unfamiliar with that concept, look it up as I think it definitely applies to photography and can affect our ability to learn and improve. I make the most progress when people whose work I admire tell me what they don’t like about my work. It’s still sometimes hard to hear, but it is a powerful tool.

Sometime last year I had my buddy Rafal Wegiel critique my portfolio. By listening to his opinions and asking questions about how he came to them, I learned a ton. Those things are all little do’s and don’ts that I have added to my mental checklist to improve my work with my clients. His style is sufficiently different from mine that it was very likely that he would have many thoughts that would not have occurred to me.

There are a lot more than three lessons, but three is a magic number, and I could sort of rhyme these. Thanks for sticking with me. I love headshots, and if you shoot them, I hope you do too.

Chris Gillett is a Houston-based headshot and portrait photographer. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, but you can see more of Chris’ work at LikeTheRazor.com, and follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Complaints can be directed to complaints@peterhurley.com.

The post Guest Blog: Headshot Photographer Chris Gillett appeared first on Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider.

from Photography News https://scottkelby.com/guest-blog-headshot-photographer-chris-gillett/

[marauderingbad-blog]

One Was Gold

A chronology of Lily and Severus’ friendship

Part 2/7 

Read the Full Story on AO3:  http://archiveofourown.org/works/11690688/chapters/26319129

There were few things that Lily loved more than a fall afternoon at Hogwarts. The air was brisk but not yet cold, and the grounds were alive with a vibrant array of reds and yellows as the leaves died off in the most beautiful way possible. The weather left her spirits high, and so Lily was feeling perhaps more optimistic about this afternoon than she really should, as she had invited Severus to come hang out with her and Remus.

Remus, meanwhile, was cautiously open-minded, at best.

Lily and Severus hadn’t managed to find a very good...rhythm of hanging out in their first year, and she was determined to fix that with the new school year. Lily thought it was mainly because their friend groups really didn’t overlap at all; Severus’ friends refused to even tolerate her, and while Lily’s were polite to Severus, hanging out with him and the girls was always awkward and strained for one reason or another. Lily and Severus had taken to spending time together in private, usually--when they could manage to find time. It wasn’t quite how she’d imagined Hogwarts would be for them--Lily wanted to bring their two worlds together, and she thought Remus might be able to bridge that gap. He was smart and nice and funny in that same quiet, understated way that Severus was. Lily knew, of course, that Severus despised Potter and Black, who were Remus’ friends, but she was hopeful that he might not actually hate Remus--that he might even like Remus, if they spent some time together. Then, maybe, the three of them could hang out.

Remus wasn’t as sure about this theory, but he didn’t have the heart to tell Lily.

The two of them had their parchment and copies of the Standard Book of Spells (Grade 2) open before them, but they weren’t accomplishing much work. It was a Saturday afternoon, and it made them both lazy. Instead, they chatted about Dr. Who.

“How do you know so much about this show, anyway?” Lily asked him, finally. She didn’t know much of anything about Remus’ home life, but she was nearly certain he wasn’t Muggle-born. In large part because she thought she probably would have heard about it by now.

“My mum’s a Muggle,” he explained. “So we have a telly. Sometimes it goes wonky with the magic, but it usually works.”

“So your dad’s a wizard, then?” she asked, and he nodded.

Lily contemplated this for a moment. They were like Severus' parents, then--but perhaps not quite like them. Although it was just another point of commonality between the two boys, Lily doubted Severus would want to talk about it, and she knew better than to bring it up.

“How did they meet?” she asked instead.

“She was going for a walk in the woods one day near Cardiff and ran into a boggart. My Dad heard her screaming, and he chased it away.”

“That’s awfully romantic,” Lily remarked. “Like a knight-in-shining armor.”

Severus stood on the grounds a few yards away from where Lily and Remus were conversing. He eyed the pair bitterly. One year had noticeably hardened Severus. His perception of his fellows students and life in general was beginning to shift. He still loved Lily, of course, but he couldn’t afford to have their friendship publicized any more. He still preferred to be with her most, but being together was becoming increasingly difficult--and now she wanted him to befriend one of Potter’s lackeys.

Admittedly, Severus was aware that Remus wasn’t like Potter and Black--but there were Slytherins and there were Gryffindors.

He approached Lily and Remus with his robes billowing behind him, overhearing the tail end of their conversation.

“Boggarts only frighten people. They can’t physically harm anyone. No heroism or skill is required to face one,” Severus stated. His tone was as stoic as his stance, which left Lily and Remus in his shadow.

Remus was unfazed by Severus’ interruption, he merely shrugged and smiled, “Yes,” he agreed. “Although, my mum didn’t know that at the time. I do think boggarts can be difficult to face when you’re the one they’re focused on, it would take a type of...strength of mind, I’d think, to overcome the delusion. But anyway. That’s how they met,” he explained.

Lily smiled tightly and flashed Severus a warning look: be nice, she seemed to beseech him. “How are you, Sev?” she asked, making room for him to sit next to her.

Severus responded to Lily’s warning with a wry smile but, nevertheless, found a seat next to her on the grass. He shot Remus a wary look as he dug through his bag to recover one of the assignments he was currently working on.

“Well, I’m about a foot and a half into the three foot composition that Binns set us on the International Warlock Convention of 1289. I would be getting on a bit more smoothly writing-wise if the consensus of this convention was historically known.” He rolled his eyes.

“He does this intentionally,” Severus sneered but then suddenly remembered something that had been inspired by Remus’ presence. “I don’t recall seeing you at that lecture, Lupin.”

Remus brightened at the change of topic--this was something he could certainly discuss safely with Severus. He loved history, even if he didn’t exactly love how Binns taught it. Growing up in virtual isolation from the world, there hadn’t been much for Remus to do but read, and he enjoyed history books. Remus opened his mouth to share his thoughts on the Convention, but then, Severus had to breach that topic. He closed his mouth and withdrew--it made him nearly sick with worry that people other than his friends seemed to notice his absences, too. He dared not hope the miracle of James, Sirius, and Peter’s acceptance would be repeated with anyone else. Remus knew how Severus’ friends seemed to feel about Muggle-borns, even if he didn’t quite know what Severus himself thought; he could only imagine what they thought about werewolves.

“No, I--I was at home. My mum...she has cancer, actually. It’s a Muggle disease. Deadly, but it can take months or years, it’s never really clear...so I go home once a month to see her, just in case,” he lied quietly. It was a good lie, because any nervousness, hesitancy, or sudden paleness could be easily attributed to the difficulty of discussing a dying parent. The trouble was, it didn’t quite explain why Remus looked so ill all the time, or why he sometimes turned up with the pale remnants of a healing gash on his face.

Lily covered her mouth with her hand, her green eyes suddenly wide and mournful. It was the first time she’d ever heard this story--mainly because she never asked Remus where he got off to. Lily didn’t think it was any of her business. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Remus,” she said. “I had no idea…”

Remus shook his head. “It’s alright...I mean, it’s not, but it isn’t your fault, in any case.”

Severus wasn’t so easily convinced by Remus’ explanation simply because he did not trust anyone. Especially Potter and company. He had no interest in pursuing his instincts, however, and attributed the absence to an insignificant, half-baked Potter scheme.

“Very sad, indeed,” he expressed his condolences to Remus with a lucid look that stated ‘you have not fooled me.’

“Lucky you have such…good friends to support you in times of need.” The shadow of a sneer curled his upper lip and he awaited Remus' reaction. Everyone knew Remus was part of Potter and Black's gang, but Severus was interested to see just how close Remus actually was to them.

The expression on Remus’ face turned from weary to defensive when Severus mentioned his friends. “Yes,” he agreed confidently. “I am very lucky. They’ve been very supportive,” Remus said firmly. He wasn’t sure, exactly, what he was trying to convey--a simply defense of his friends’ characters, or if he was trying to subtly imply that the other three were already in on the secret, so Severus needn’t waste anyone’s time trying to expose it to them. Perhaps a bit of both. Remus knew they weren’t perfect, but they were much better people than most would ever expect; they were better people than even Remus had expected before they had chosen to stand by him so unwavering, giving Remus something he never really expected from anyone but his parents--true, wholehearted acceptance.

Lily observed Remus curiously. She wasn’t entirely sure what had just passed between the two boys, but something did surprise her in the way Remus spoke about the others. Somehow, she couldn’t imagine a friendship with Potter, Black, and Pettigrew as being anything more than superficial, but there was a definite intensity in Remus’ tone and look that begged to differ.

“Erm, anyway….” Lily said, eager to try and steer the subject away from Remus’ friends--particularly Black and Potter--since this was clearly a topic neither was willing to compromise on. “How’s your essay going, then, Remus?”

“Well, I quite agree with you, Severus, that it seemed rather inconclusive,” he said. “So I’m taking the angle that it demonstrates that inability of international wizarding communities to meet together productively in the middle ages.”

Despite Lily’s efforts to avoid the topic which revealed the fundamental disparity between Severus and Remus, Severus would no longer see past it. Remus’ attestation to Potter and Black served as a distasteful realization of the truth depth of his allegiance to them. He had no interest in continuing this facade that Lily had forced him to endure.

“What is it that you hoped to accomplish here?” Severus suddenly asked Lily with reproachful glare.

“Did you think we three would become old friends? And one day we would share a laugh as we looked back on our fleeting time as adversaries?” he spat with a cold look that had never been used towards Lily before. “He’s one of them, Lily. Next you’ll be asking me to attend a high tea with Black.”

Lily blushed, but as usual, she didn’t shy away. “Yes, that is exactly what I was trying to accomplish here!” she said, her voice wavering on upset. “Is that so wrong?” she asked. “Silly fights and bickering shouldn’t go on forever, we’re only twelve years old!” Lily pointed out. “And I like you both. We’re all smart and interested in a lot of the same things, so yes, I thought we might get along,” she huffed, then fell quiet, trying not to get too worked up over how badly she wanted this to work out and how openly Severus seemed to be mocking the very idea of it.

“And, no, I wouldn’t be asking you to have high tea with Black, because I don’t like Black either and most certainly won’t be having high tea with him anytime soon!” she sniffed. “But I do like Remus, and I thought since I don’t find it necessary to like the rest of his friends, that perhaps you might not either, but it seems they’re all you can talk about!”

Remus stayed quiet through this exchange--there were a few things he might have liked to say, namely that while he most certainly was one of them, he was still his own person as well. But Remus didn’t want to further aggravate the situation, so he kept his gaze cast downwards.

“You’ve seen how they treat me,” Severus hissed at Lily with narrowed eyes. It was true that Potter and Black were more likely to instigate their contentious (and typically humiliating) encounters, but Severus certainly was no innocent victim. But he could see it no other way.

“The closer Lupin gets to them, the more likely he is to turn on me. And it’s easier for you to say otherwise--they may irritate you but they never attack you.”

Severus’ heightened paranoia was clear and plain to see. Throughout the past year he had learned to survive on suspicion. He didn’t trust Potter, he didn’t trust his own friends, and in this moment, he was questioning his trust in Lily.

“Yes, I do,” Lily said tersely. “I stand up for you all the time, or hadn’t you noticed?” she asked. Lily could have pointed out that he never stood up for her to his friends, but--truthfully, it bothered Lily too much to even acknowledge aloud. “I’m sure Remus can attest to how ruthless I am to Black and Potter in the privacy of the common room as well.”

“I think you and McGonagall are the only people they’re truly afraid of,” Remus agreed, but all the while, he had been watching Severus curiously. “I’m already very close with them, you know,” he pointed out. “But they can’t force me to do anything I don’t want to, and I don’t want to be involved in any of that stuff between you all, they know that,” said Remus. “I’m...sorry for how they act towards you. It’s not right.”

Severus listened to Lily with a bit more patience now, then surveyed Remus with mild interest as he apologized for his friends' behavior.

“I have noticed…” he mumbled to Lily, looking down, away from her for a moment. Even though Severus hadn’t verbally expressed his sudden uncertainty of trust in Lily, he still felt ashamed for having ever considered it. “But being friends with Lupin would only make things worse.”

He stood up and briskly brushed off his robes as he looked down to Remus. “Perhaps you’re right, perhaps they can’t force you to do anything. But that doesn’t change the fact of how close you are to them. And your apologies won’t change anything.”

For a moment, Severus looked off into the distance out at the sprawling red-orange autumn forest before meeting Lily’s eyes once more.

“I’m sorry, Lily,” he uttered quietly before he turned away from her and walked away, back towards the castle.

Lily could only frown as she watched Severus walk away. When he was gone, she let out an exasperated sigh and flopped onto her back.

“I just want to be able to hang out like...normal people. I feel like we’re in friends limbo,” she explained to Remus. If she was being honest with herself, she also wanted to lure him away from those Slytherin boys--Lily couldn’t help but feel there was something truly wrong and nasty about them all. Yet, she was somewhat embarrassed to admit to this level of scheming.

Remus frowned and leaned back onto his right arm, “It’s not always easy bringing people together,” he said. “Maybe he’s just meant to be your friend.”

“I could never get Sev and Tuney to get along either, no matter how hard I tried,” Lily admitted.

“Who’s that?” Remus asked.

“My sister,” she said, and frowned as she stared up through the tree branches at the gray sky above. Petunia was another one who felt as though she was constantly slipping further and further away. Why couldn’t she hang on to them?

“Why are you friends with them?” Lily asked after a beat. “I don’t mean to be accusatory, I just sort of feel like...you’re all sort of dissimilar, and that’s kind of how it is between Severus and I, and it feels more and more like that everyday.”

Remus had to pause and contemplate it--he had often marveled at this himself, not quite understanding at the beginning why someone as bold and funny and cool as James and Sirius would want to be friends with someone like him--or even Peter, for that matter. “Peter and I probably make more sense, so I think you mean more how the two of us fit in with the two of them,” Remus shrugged. “They’re just...really good friends. Terrible enemies, but good friends,” he explained. “I don’t know, we just all sort of clicked from very early on. They make me laugh and they pull me out of my comfort zone, but they never really expect me to be different or more like them, because...they like me for who I am,” Remus said.

“That’s kind of how it is for Severus and I, too,” said Lily. “I just wish...that he didn’t care so much what other people think of him--or us.”

“I wish James and Sirius cared a little more about what other people think,” Remus admitted with a tiny smirk. Lily laughed.

Remus peeked down at her; there was still some lingering regret in her expression. “Let’s go back to the castle--I’ve got some chocolate frogs you can have, and we can play wizard’s chess,” he suggested.

Lily smiled again, “Alright.”

[brianobrienny]

Executive Insights: A Marketing Technology (MarTech) Conversation with Scott Brinker

I first had the opportunity to first hear Scott Brinker, VP of Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot, speak at the ITSMA Marketing Vision event several years ago. I later saw him give the keynote address at the Boston MarTech Conference along with guest appearance on marketing-related webinars.

Scott has published the chiefmartec.com blog since 2008 and speaks at many industry events including the MarTech conference (which Scott leads as program chair) a major industry event with both East and West Coast venues.

This year COVID19 threw a monkey wrench at the spring event – instead of being in-person in San Jose, it was a virtual event. My long-time webinar partner ON24 hosted the event and it was flawlessly executed over the course of three days with multiple keynotes from Scott.

Adding to the fun, Scott threw in the twist of “MarTech like a pirate” in his opening-day keynote and was immediately christened the “MarTech Pirate” on social media (check out #MarTechpirate).

Everything consistently highlighted Scott’s tremendous expertise in the field of Marketing, Operations and Technology (MarTech) which helped earned him the title the “Father of MarTech.”

The Marketing Technology Landscape Scott and his team publish annually has tracked the rapid growth of MarTech. I have enjoyed sharing this for years to audiences in my own speaking engagements, and the insights in segmentation, trends and growth are always very well received.

The audience at this spring’s event was rewarded with an update of the “MarTech 5000” which was over 7,000 applications last year and grew to over 8,000 when netting out both growth and “churn” from last year.

While attending the 2019 ITSMA Marketing Vision event at the MIT Samberg Conference Center and the spring MarTech virtual event, I was again thrilled to see Scott speak.

His insights and presentation were absolutely a highlight of both events. It was my pleasure to recently to sit down virtually with Scott and discuss the “brave new world” of MarTech, “Modern marketing” and much more.

Q: We highlighted your analysis of the MarTech Landscape on our recent Dresner Advisory Services “Tweetchat” and there was, as expected, lots of interest in the latest Marketing Technology Landscape. We are now up to over 8,000 different Marketing Technology (MarTech) applications, up from the year before (7,000+). What happened to the long-expected consolidation, what do you think the second half 2020/2021 results will show, and will we finally see consolidation in MarTech solutions?

A: Well obviously the caveat to anything is that the business impact of COVID19 has certainly in the short-term thrown lots of uncertainty into pretty much every industry; hence any predictions we make about the next 12-18 months need some humility and the proverbial grain of salt.

What we are seeing in the MarTech industry is consolidation on one hand, there are the major marketing platforms, marketing clouds, and a relatively small group of companies that dominate the MarTech industry.

But what is fascinating is even as you see this incredible consolidation with leaders within specific categories, there is in parallel a continuous arrival of innovative MarTech start-ups.

Many are entering the market because of the consolidation with these major marketing platforms. They provide a validated, stable platform upon which more specialist applications address specialized needs. The analogy I often use is the Apple/Android consolidation that fundamentally defined platform ownership, spawning large amounts of creative and innovative new applications.

So, I think we will see more consolidation through 2021 from the larger companies, but I suspect we will see as many applications as we have today that are these specialized MarTech solutions revolving in orbit around these “centers of gravity” and ecosystems.

Q: When you spoke at the ITSMA Marketing Vision conference last fall you showcased a set of “new rules for marketing and operations” and an outstanding model with a two axis/quadrant model of centralization/decentralization and humanization/automation with change smack in the middle and driving entirely new pressures on marketing. How has this been received, and any updates to report between last fall and this spring’s MarTech conference?

A: The model is based upon two fundamental axes, and the idea of balancing centralization and decentralization on one and automation and human innovation on the other. The world has certainly become more attuned to both dimensions and that is what customer experience (CX) and modern marketing are all about.

Looking at centralization, we know it is important as ever to have centralized orchestration, the single source of the truth, for customer, product, and campaign data. This is the place where everyone can navigate and operate by what I call a “common set of celestial objects”.

But at the same time, while you want that strong centralized foundation and a universal source of the truth, you need to be empowering people to create specialized campaigns for a highly targeted set of customers, supported by workflow to optimize their impact, and creating digital touchpoints to interest with customers and support the CX journey.

We have so many things to consider as the world is becoming more digital – and in today’s environment, many activities are almost entirely digital! It is almost impossible to have all that creation happen through one centralized team.

It is analogous to the “IT applications backlog” of a generation ago – instead of you having to wait on just IT, you wait on marketing operations, log a ticket and wait in a queue given bandwidth and resource constraints that creates time delays.

That holds back organizations and marketers, but if the centralized function can increasingly give people throughout the organization more “self-service” capability (supported by good governance and “guard rails”) they can dramatically accelerate the amount of digital creation and the speed at which it happens.

I think the world is embracing decentralized, empowered creation within marketing and with it, humanization supported by automation to allow everyone to work at scale and in an efficient manner.

We have been reminded many times during this current crisis of “what wins” – the heart and minds of our customers is not about behaving as an efficient machine but as humans and with empathy, that can adapt to these exceptions, because not everything is “one size fits all”.

Automation gets us the required efficiency, something we appreciate more than ever, but we must empower marketers, salespeople and customer serviced and empower the rest of the organization to make “human decisions” on top of our automation. I believe that is a key to building a great company of the 2020s and beyond.

Q: You have done a lot of work around the concept of the “Marketing Technologist” and the degree to which this is a required competency of every “modern marketer”. What are the major personas you see today, the required skills, technologies and applications are there significant gaps marketers must address?

A: The idea of the Marketing Technologist really started about 10 years ago, and recognized that there was an emerging hybrid marketing professional, working in the marketing department, with an allegiance to the marketing mission, but with a certain set of technical skills.

Sometimes these skills came from a previous career in software and/or IT and sometimes, they just decided to learn it having been intrigued by how technology and tools could make new things possible. And so, they brought that to their work in the marketing department. What is interesting is how over the past decade the number of activities in marketing that leverage that hybrid talent has absolutely exploded.

In fact, it is increasingly hard to find roles in marketing that do not have this requirement to a certain degree!

And as I showcased earlier, I love a good “two by two matrix” and recently put together a model to describe the “flavors” of the marketing technologist in the marketing department.

We are starting to see some specialization within the profession – on the first axis, is the role primarily externally facing, i.e. serving prospects, customers, and partners, or is it more internally facing with stakeholders within the organization?

And the second axis is a focus on the process, how things flow from an external perspective.

For example, we may think of the Customer Journey and CX from an internal perspective, for example workflow and process management, but what about the technology?

This is where you see the people who are building web sites and applications and creating new offerings, I think of them as “market makers”, and they are actually creating these new technology offerings for an external audience then building them internally. And we have a set of people that the “data architects” and “data scientists” within marketing departments, who bring a hybrid set of skills including data and analytics. The largest set of people are those who are both “process-oriented” and focused primarily on the external audience.

And there are the tech savvy marketers, they are running campaigns and [primary brand and demand generation builders. They are using things like Marketing Automation Platforms (MAP), CRM and MarTech and leverage these tools every day.

They are focused upon the business outcomes and how it impacts the customer journey and CX. On the other side, these folks are more process-oriented, serving internal constituencies and marketing stakeholders; they are the “maestros”, operations orchestrators of the MarTech Stack, and spend most of their time working with these tools. And of course, in workflow management, spreadsheets and other tools comprising their organization’s own unique MarTech stack.

That is the full spectrum of people who are “marketing technologists” — they have a specialization, as tech-savvy marketers, as a marketing operations leader, an analytics architect or as an actual developer and market maker.

Q: What are the key aspects of “Data-Informed Decision Making”, how does Business Intelligence (BI), data and analytics play, and how do we best prepare for and support this as we continue to transform marketing?

A: That is a great question! I definitely like the phrase “data-informed” because I sometimes feel like “data-driven” means there is so much data that we can access, that in some way the “data tail wags the decision dog”.

And that the decision fits the possible answer because somewhere you can find the data to support the desired action. You are biased, you search for what will support the decision and find data to support what you already concluded and say, “I see the data and it fits”!

Unfortunately, that does not make the business more effective. Being “data informed” is much more of framing questions, creating hypotheses, and even run experiments with a limit; this is a great scenario for our personas model and specifically the data architect. We are driven by business questions and hypotheses and it does not require “NASA quality clean rooms” of data – data “good enough” for making reasonable decisions.

And with the ability to define experiments within these hypotheses, this supports the concepts of decentralization we discussed earlier, as well as empowering people throughout the organization to test hypotheses, run experiences and collaborate and share the results.

And the broader this experimentation capability can be distributed throughout the organization the more you become a true “learning organization” – a key capability of the “future of work” and other mainstream transformations that support modern marketing.

Q: You mentioned a “second golden age of MarTech” this spring, which was new since last fall; what is it and what can we look forward to? And given ubiquitous change, what is your advice to Marketers to address “MarTech’s Law” where Marketing Technology changes more rapidly than organizations themselves?

A: The past ten years was the first golden age of MarTech, which was this incredible explosion of marketing technology as we went from a couple hundred MarTech tools to the thousands. And with it, from a few marketing technologists in our marketing department to literally everyone having these tools and a marketing technology bent of some kind in their work.

What is going to happen in this second golden age of MarTech in the decade ahead is the resolution of several dichotomies we have struggled with in the last decade.

The first is suite versus best of breed, and do I buy all my MarTech tools from one vendor, because they supposedly all work together. Or do I choose them across the MarTech landscape and connect them all together?

I believe we are moving from a different view of suite versus best of breed in the second golden era of MarTech – to platform ecosystems as discussed earlier, major platforms providing maybe 80 percent of core functionality and augment with specialist applications that are designed to integrate with these platforms.

The second is one that we all have struggled with, there were once distinct services and software companies. No more – a new reality of the second golden age of MarTech is software companies offering more services and services companies offering more software. We are coming to a world where these two are blended.

The third is we used to frame the decision of “build versus buy” for commercial software. In some ways this is the domain of the platform ecosystems – we are seeing the same thing for custom software inside an organization, instead of build versus buy it is a decision to start with a commercial platform and then augment with specialized applications and processes designed for your specific business.

And regarding “MarTech’s Law” the idea is that technology is changing faster than any organization can absorb it. There is no silver bullet here I can offer, but there are two things we can recommend from this.

One – be very strategic and deliberate with the changes we will embrace; we simply cannot embrace them all and must focus upon what is most important to our business and our customers.

Secondly – we cannot change as fast as the technology curve itself is changing. If we become more agile (embracing techniques from software development that are now becoming mainstream in modern marketing) we become more agile and can change faster than out competitors. And that becomes a truly sustainable competitive advantage.

Thanks, Scott for your tremendous insights!

Be sure to follow Scott on chiefmartec.com and attend one of the outstanding MarTech Conference events. Check out my blog on the 2019 ITSMA Marketing Visions conference and how SAP has used Account-Based Marketing (one of many great MarTech tools) to leverage ABM in an award-winning approach with impressive results and some thoughts I recently shared on the outstanding spring 2020 MarTech Conference.

Fred Isbell is a high technology industry marketing veteran, former Senior Marketing Director for SAP Global Marketing and a Research Director at Dresner Advisory Services. Join Fred online: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Scott Brinker is Vice President of Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot, Editor at chiefmartec.com, Program Chair of the MarTech conference series and a frequent speaker at conferences on marketing technology and agile marketing Follow Scott at: @chiefmartec and chiefmartec.com

The post Executive Insights: A Marketing Technology (MarTech) Conversation with Scott Brinker appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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[michellelewis7162]

Are E-Sports Truly Athletics?

Are E-Sports Truly Athletics?

 Very competitive pc gaming has actually been around a long period of time on the Personal Computer together with professional Starcraft leagues and even activities for activities like Quake and also Counter-Strike. The Xbox 360 has actually made competitive gaming considerably much more famous in the final couple of years along with the pro-gaming console activity Major League Gaming, or maybe MLG for easy, in addition to has actually started to become classified as a sport through lots of players. Also sports information protection, including ESPN, have solved in to this brand-new trend gotten in touch with E-Sports (digital sporting activities) along with right now handles along with MLG video clip games on their internet website as effectively as also in some cases discusses it on Sportscenter. Yet is this concentration validated? Are E-Sports certainly sporting activities? The reaction is no and also detailed here are actually reasons that this is actually thereby. Esports Hall Of Fame

 Scarcity of extensive fundamental skill-set gap

I thought I would surely begin alongside this description so that any sort of form of players that think this is the only explanation for this quick write-up might be actually worked out straight off. I am actually undoubtedly not revealing that I can easily trump a Halo 3 gamer like Tsquared. He is much better than me. A lack of organic ability space suggests that, along with dedication, virtually any sort of kind of player may conveniently wind up being a pro at the activity they wish to deal in. This is in fact surely not repair for everyone and also under is actually an occasion. When I utilized to participate in SOCOM II, a buddy of mine had more than 2,000 humans resources logged onto the game online. I had considerably lower than fifty humans resources, however I was really considerably as well as likewise away a far better player than him. I assume that despite only just how much he participated in, I would certainly possess regularly been really much better. Nonetheless, on the numerous other palm, there are several players including on my own that are actually just normally proficient at online video clip activities. I possess a 2.5 K/D percentage on Halo 3, but I seldom join the video clip activity and execute definitely not take it extremely seriously. I do not likewise like it. I have a sensation, however, that if I took part in 8 hrs a time or also a lot more with the intent to take it astonishingly really, I could most likely comprehensive at the MLG amount. I have an experiencing a majority of the gamers on Halo 3 that are actually dedicated to it, can potentially complete at the MLG volume Esports Events.

 This is certainly not so alongside sporting activities like hockey, baseball, baseball, also golf or perhaps ping pong. I used to play hockey as a little one however regardless of just how much I joined, there is actually a 99.999% odds I are going to certainly never ever before produce it right in to the NHL. I think the particular very same might be actually mentioned for manies thousand, possibly likewise numerous specialist athletes in primary sporting tasks. Yet undoubtedly not pc gaming. You possess an extremely excellent possibility of having the ability to compete in the business of video gaming simply through guideline and likewise maintaining devoted to it.

 Perhaps I can easily certainly never ever before defeat TSquared nevertheless taking into consideration that games executes not involve physicality, the distinction between our team would certainly be merely commitment. He is a lot a lot much more committed than I am, along with has really been actually for a long opportunity. The professional video gaming plays online video audio games as his life. I selected a different progress pathway. Just like I wouldn't be actually as superb a forensic investigator as an individual that possesses twenty years expertise, I undoubtedly will certainly not be really as superb a gamer as TSquared if I contended versus him currently.

 There is no exploring integrate

In the bulk of major featuring activities video games like the NBA, NHL, NFL, as well as additionally MLB, there are light groups or educational institution level play. This is in fact simply how players develop it around the majors, they engage in through university and after that get made to a team or even play in the smalls, verify by themselves, as well as are actually contacted. In E-Sports, there's no minors. You do not must verify by yourself to deal, you simply pay out to take part in an activity. I can not inform you the ton of chances I have checked out a sporting activities game on TV to pay attention to a commentator insurance claim one point along complimentary toss lines of 'You're in the Majors, you should certainly possess the ability to create that play' or maybe one trait identical. There's no state being actually an MLG player, it is actually meaningless. Anyone can conveniently turn into one at anytime. Today, you may receive extremely outdoed if you're no excellent, yet it's since you're competing at a degree you need to certainly not be actually. There is actually an explanation when major league players in MLB are actually supplied up to the smalls on a rehab project or one trait that they dominate or that a player that could possibly dominate at three-way An or even the AHL for hockey may pull in the NHL and even MLB, it's an entirely different level of play Esports Events.

 E-Sports do not have quantities of play similar to this (certain there's the CAL as well as likewise CPL however it does not work in a similar way). Either you are in fact competing or perhaps you're certainly not. I believe to be actually examined a sporting task, MLG requires to fix this through consisting of a smalls where gamers are planted stemming from to accomplishing in the majors. This will certainly be actually the only means to participate in the majors is actually to come to be invited, absolutely not just subscribe and additionally shelling out a price.

 An absence of unity or even institution

There are in fact a lot of gaming organizations available. There is in fact the MLG, CAL, CPL, GGL, Gamebattles (in reality a department of MLG), Starleagues, and likewise several others, some extra genuine or famous than others. Sure there are various sports games, nonetheless I don't assume any person is actually moving to discuss that in America there is in fact a volleyball association even more legit and even prominent than the NFL and even a hockey league a lot more valid in addition to preferred than the NHL. Why doesn't pc video gaming possess one real video game? Why is it therefore ragged? If it was in fact a correct sporting activity, it must possess an oneness of organization. As an alternative, activities are actually simply independently had and ran which activates lots of various ones. Are in fact players in MLG better than a gamer in CPL? That comprehends, they are in fact various companies in addition to several activities. I might with self-confidence insurance claim gamers in the NHL are really much better than gamers in a European League.

 This takes me to one additional variable, the company of E-Sports is nothing at all like a sporting activity. There is no regular season, there are really merely activities as well as additionally ladders. Also the games that behave to have seasons are just taking care of ladders for a details time-frame and also phone it a period. Ladders don't function like time periods given that you might participate in or leave an action ladder at any sort of option. If you go 0-5 on Gamebattles, delete your team in addition to remake it as well as additionally you eliminate your bad begin. Groups don't possess the really same selection of video clip activities took part in. You can challenge several other teams at your desire so you absolutely never ever should join a team that you recognize might beat you unless you connect to the Playoffs. Actual sporting activities may not be like this. There may not be only a handful of tournament-style occasions throughout the duration Esports Events.

 Making it a lot more sports-like

Generally, E-Sports games seem to be to come to be making use of to make pc gaming appear a sport without actually developing it straight in to one. Like the enhancement of trainers in MLG activities like Gears of War and also Halo. That seems to be like an entirely ludicrous addition to trained pc gaming as well as additionally one that does not likewise make it a great deal more like a sport. Why carries out a player require a trainer?

 To help produce games in to a sport, they need to create company changes. Let's continue to take advantage of MLG as an occasion. A Halo 3 group in MLG need to have to need to become in fact financed by a firm or person. A supporter does certainly not just spend for journeys to Meadowlands and also offer you spectacular personal computer games gears. That individual demands to possess the workers as well as they generate the roster customizations. If Ogre 1 in addition to Ogre 2 do not similar to Walshy any longer, additionally bad. They perform certainly not possess a say, the sponsor performs. Teams shouldn't be actually merely a crew of buddies that received together once as effectively as have really participated in entirely in the past because. They should be in fact audio roots that are actually going to exist years from now, alongside our without it's existing player lineup.

 They should perform a regular period. Somewhat of going to a handful of competitors contests or perhaps accomplishing in some web measure ladder, the groups linked with the duration are actually set up at the begin of the amount of time. Leave to can effortlessly crews sign up with or maybe leave behind when the opportunity is underway. As a result, schedules are in fact organized each crew. If you are really considered to take part in a group, you visit that location and also play all of them. Correct featuring activities groups as well as additionally players quest a building. It appears gamers remainder in the property training for the following celebration. You learn the training program of the off-season in a showing off task, and also play in the program of the duration. Why will certainly affordable play be actually secured online when you have system issues, possible unfaithful, as effectively as lag? It performs certainly not make great sense. Consequently there is actually no explanation they ought to certainly not be in fact travelling around the country to play their observing arranged competitor.

 Each workers will certainly have the very same considerable amount of video games joined. After the period ends, playoffs would certainly be actually seeded and also played in the tournament-style activities like Meadowlands. That must be just how playoffs are actually carried out. Quickly it seems they possess no value whatsoever apart from acquiring you cash and offering you factors Esports Events.

 There should additionally be actually a searching combination. You can easily certainly not just up as well as participate in an MLG competitors someday. You will most definitely need to join a different institution as well as likewise complete there undoubtedly till you rate with a team operator to join an MLG group. That would undoubtedly offer authenticity to the game in addition to additionally probably remove a number of wish for to-be's along with posers given that they may not be heading to want to compete as well as additionally take a vacation a lot.

 eSports: What Exactly Is It?

 Typically, most of video clip games that are actually affiliated along with these competitors feature a multiplier component as the whole factor of eSports is really to interact with various other gamers. There are actually lots of choices now delivered that players can conveniently play in a ton of various tournaments and also competitors. The secret is to take part in the video game type that you get a kick out of a lot of or are really effectively at.

 Virtually all video game styles are really pleased in eSports as effectively as our business situated that people of the absolute most popular styles were 1st individual shooting (FPS), sport and also MMORPGs. Our pros expect even more to become really featured to this directory in the future.

 Currently, eSports are really generally eaten as well as cherished through males along with 85% of guys comprising participation of occasions. Field leaders are proactively producing an effort to ensure women engagement along with our company presume our crew are going to observe some development on this as our crew advance into 2017. Furthermore, the eSports market made ₤ 258 million in 2015 and our company anticipate this to become actually around ₤ 391 for 2016 which is rather crazy!

 Where Can I View eSports?

It all sounds rather stimulating, does certainly not it? The industry is actually anticipated to proceed its own impressive growth in 2017 as well as additionally engagement goes to an eternal higher due to the media systems on-call. You may look into eSports on several devices as well as net web sites. Jerk and YouTube are actually the incredibly the majority of detectable ones along with ESPN and Yahoo likewise possessing their really personal committed eSports places. Additional website that you could certainly not have in fact recognized represent Twitch in addition to supply some terrific web information. These are really Azubu as well as MLG therefore evaluate each of them out for some excellent quality eSports streams.

 Such is in fact the progression of eSports that regular sports internet web sites (our pros take advantage of ESPN over as an occasion) are actually starting to suit their information to eSports fans. This is actually instead impressive along with really stresses to our business just how truly sporting tasks dj are really taking the eSports organisation.

 The Success of LoL

 So where conducted LoL arise from?! Its reached the eSports earth like a tidal wave on Indonesia. I directly have actually played it on along with off dued to the fact that beta and also have actually enjoyed it blossom in to this beautiful fully increased realistic moba. It has actually been no straightforward roadway for Riot. There has actually been therefore many risks reached that Riot have really shown up to surely not merely jump over, having said that capitalise on and also widen. Exactly how did they perform it? Whats caused LoL's development?

 The extremely early difficulty for Riot was actually verse HoN. This competition I suppose has actually stressed just exactly just how successful the free to play suggestion may be. However, completely free of cost to participate in is actually certainly not a new idea along with its own important to remember exactly how adequately Riot balanced it in addition to paid info. The controllable product and likewise paid web information is really thus carefully tuned that it dangles sufficient over easygoing gamers to always keep each one of all of them going as effectively as yearning for more while dedicated gamers usually shell out via the noes to acquire whatever they presume they require to play their biggest.

 The other component of the HoN competition is that Riot marketed their game largely to end up being as accepting of all sort of gamers as possible, specifically the ordinary noob. You can find the concept in charge of HoN was to possess a severe reasonable importance, maybe in the ilk of how sc2 was really introduced. It also consequently attracted a lot of dota players.

 In the meanwhile Riot was noob inviting, location based as well as additionally possessed their 'summoners code.' The the real life implications of this, imo, is actually reasonably unsubstantial. People still imitate dicks along with the communities state of minds etc are actually rather similar. Nevertheless people obtain it, they believe that their activity has a various point of view also along with whether they conduct what they teach. Its own comparable to hipster national politics that state "save the world man" while highly recommending republican.

 Difficulty decided to OWN their competitions. Possibly the premier LoL tournament is what LoL on its own owns/promotes/runs ingame. Now this is maybe something undoubtedly never observed only before in every various other computer game. Many activity programmers to day release an activity afterwards enabled the place maintained up it. Blizzard are actually one of minority producers in past that ever before support a game after launch.

 Fortune is in fact a crucial element as well detailed right here, in a wide array of regions. The very 1st is in fact streaming went huge around this instant. sc2 saw and likewise got traits cracking on justin.tv > rascal along with own3d. LoL quickly took this up and also Riot maintained it. Circumstances were actually well for Riot to capitalise on reaching their intended target market in a whole new technique.

 One more variable is actually precisely how fracking aweasomley Riot acquired setting up activity caster skill. Was this an internal decision? Considering that it has really paid out handsomely for every one of them. LoL on its personal is really a technical/descriptive/ in reverse as well as onward tires damp desire. To in other words, its personal a performers cash cow. Its own like the cricket of eSports.

 The 2nd part of best of luck has in fact been really South Korea and also the switch arising from sc1 to sc2. It could not have in fact been really timed far better for Riot and also I will certainly be actually astounded to know even more relating to merely exactly how a great deal Riot made an attempt to ensure LoL in Asia. sc2 emerged as well as the entire of South Korea were actually adhered in this starcraft hangover rut, it seemed like a sizable economic environment folding huge. sc2 just will certainly not get rid of and also Koreans went looking for a brand new activity. That brand-new video recording game was actually LoL.

 Therefore straight listed here our team are in fact, LoL and trouble are actually at the leading edge of competitive activities, on the precipice of an all new opportunity. They ruined HoN, have in fact damaged away from the successful activity region and also are really today in to the eSports transforming zone. Only one concern stands up before each of them and also its personal dota2.

 I am actually brought in and additionally enjoyed observe precisely how they manage this concern. The computer game motor is in fact the next battleground I assume. Presently LoL has a terrific tranquility in between being remarkably playable on all personal computers, however needing satisfactory to create people buy much better elements to manage it. So it attracts the appropriate volume of followers to tasks.

[maxjchan-blog]

Nonfiction Essay - The Importance of Sports

Sports can mean lots of different things to lots of different people. People have their own unique experience with how sports have affected their lives, whether it be in a minor or major way. To some people, sports are a lifestyle that dictate their daily lives, and to others, sports are just a way of unwinding after a long day at work. Growing up, playing sports provided a lot of things for me. They provided physical activity through practice and playing the game. They provided companionship through teammates and opposing teams. They provided me a way to spend time with my dad. They provided me with lessons I could use down the road later in life. Even now that I’m older, they still provide me with things like entertainment, and a common language to speak with fellow enthusiasts. 

I love baseball and I love the Cubs. I’ve been a Cub fan for as long as I can remember, and I will be one forever. Being a Cub fan is a big thing in my family, and my parents wanted to pass that mentality on to me at a young age. My first baseball game ever was a Cubs vs Cardinals game at Wrigley Field when I was four years old. I remember I went with my dad, my grandpa, and my uncle, as sort of a “boys only” outing. I don’t remember many details of the game itself, only that I had such a fun time, and I’ve been a diehard Cub fan ever since then. I remember in the early 2010’s when the Cubs were an absolutely abysmal team, but it never affected my love for them. I knew one day they’d go all the way, and that all those years of suffering would be worth it. The 2016 postseason was one of the best months of my life. I watched every single game they played and attended two of their home games. I remember exactly where I was during Game 7 of the World Series, and I remember the exact emotions I felt throughout the game. Every so often, I go on an emotional trip through YouTube and watch postseason highlights, just so I can relive their incredible run. The World Series win meant so much to me as a life-long fan, and I’m so blessed that I was able to witness it in my lifetime. I first started playing organized baseball when I was five. At that point, it was still tee ball, but in my eyes, it was just the beginning of my career in becoming a professional baseball player. My parents wanted me to play a sport in order to stay physically active and make new friends. Since my mom and dad’s favorite sport was baseball, naturally they wanted me to be into it as well. Not long after starting to play, I quickly picked up a love for the game that I still have to this day. I’m not exactly sure what it was specifically that infatuated me. Maybe it was feeling the satisfying feeling you get in your hands when the bat and ball connect. Or maybe it was the feeling of being the flash and kicking up dirt while running the bases. Or maybe it was a mixture of both. Either way, baseball quickly became my life.

I soon graduated from tee ball, and started playing with the older kids. While I still had a few years to go of  “coach pitch,” it felt like a big upgrade to me and I was excited to keep playing and getting better. I remember dragging my dad outside every opportunity I got to play catch or practice hitting the ball. He helped me with my throwing form, my batting stance, and other fundamentals that make up a good ballplayer. I remember loving the idea of making a game-winning diving catch, so I would have my dad throw popups where I could run and dive in our front yard. This was when I first started realizing that baseball was allowing me to grow a very strong bond with my dad. This was also around the time my parents got divorced, so I was only seeing my dad on the weekends. Baseball gave us something to do together, whether it was watching the Cubs lose, or spending the day at the diamond together running some batting practice. He was always there for me when it came to baseball. He would sometimes leave work early in order to come pick me up and take me to my weekly practices and games.

One of my favorite things about playing organized sports was being on a team, and growing a bond with your teammates. Each year, there’d be a new group of guys, and you’d have to work together through practice, drills, and meetings in order to build the bond that allowed for the team to be successful as a whole. When you’re having a rough game or you’re on a losing streak, it’s the team chemistry that will ultimately bring everyone together and bring you all out of the rut. Over the years of playing in the same league, I got to know a lot of the other guys who were also playing, and we quickly became friends. I remember talking to the kids whose dads were coaches, and trying to get them to put certain people on teams together. It worked every once in awhile, but it was also fun being on rival teams against friends. Nothing beats the satisfaction of destroying your friend in a game, then going to school the next day and rubbing it in their face, and having to wait to settle the dispute until the next time you matched up against one another. Two of my best friends to this day were made through my years of playing little league, and I wouldn’t exchange it for anything in the world. Even the kids that I didn’t become best friends with were still acquaintances, and we would still have that connection when walking through the halls at school and seeing each other. There was sort of a little community built around all the baseball players, and it allowed for some incredible memories that I will keep with me for as long as I live. 

I also learned a lot of valuable life lessons through playing baseball, mainly when I got older. By the time I reached middle school, people started to get serious about the game. We started trying out for travel teams on top of playing house baseball. Skill gaps started to form between the people who really wanted to play, and the one who were just casually interested, or still playing because their parents wanted them to. The playing field was now skewed, when previously, everyone was fairly the same, skill wise. This escalation taught me that I needed to put hard work into something if I really wanted it, because just settling for mediocre wasn’t cutting it anymore. A big reason why I continued to play was my mom. Throughout my life, she’s always been a very big proponent of not giving up on something when times are tough. She wanted me to see things through till the end, and not take the easy way out. I knew quite a few other kids in the league whose parents let them quit the first time they said they didn’t want to play ball anymore. At the time, I wanted to quit, and I was upset at my mom for not letting me. But looking back on it now, I’m very glad I stuck with it for as long as I did.

This lesson can be applied to so much more than just baseball, but life in general. Not everything in life will be given to you on a silver platter, in fact, most things in life require a lot of work to be put if you expect to get a good result in the end. I’ve used this advice many times, whether it be in my job, at school, or in relationships. I believe that experiencing this at such a young age helped me to mature faster, as ever since then, I’ve been very adamant about hard work and dedication. 

Another lesson I learned through baseball was to always be punctual. If we showed up late to practice or a game, our coach would make us run laps, or do some kind of conditioning as a punishment, while everyone else was throwing the ball around. I quickly came to hate doing this, so I would always make sure that I got there on time, or even a little early. Being late more than affected me, it affected the team as a whole; if someone showed up late to a game, the whole team would suffer because we would be without a player. This taught me the common courtesy of being punctual when you commit to something. Sure, every once in awhile something will come up that impairs you from being on time, but it starts to become a problem if it’s a common occurrence. If you say you’re going to be somewhere at a certain time, it only makes sense to honor that and not keep anyone waiting. 

Throughout my life, sports have provided me with almost a second language, without even realizing it. Whether it be with family, friends, or complete strangers, there’s something about sports that creates a bond between people. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve been out and seen people wearing jerseys of players I like, and so we start talking about the player or the sport for a few minutes. While these conversations don’t really lead to anything, and we both normally go our separate ways afterwards, it was still a moment that probably wouldn’t have happened under different circumstances.

Sports have also allowed for a strong connection between my dad and me. After I quit baseball, I went back to only seeing him on the weekends. During my last two years of high school, I started only seeing him maybe two weekends per month, since I was becoming busy with my job and social life. I’ve always had a way stronger bond with my mom, since I’ve lived with her for a long time, but the one thing that my dad and I can and always talk about is sports. Whenever I see him, we usually talk about the recent happenings in the world of sports, and it just feels so natural and brings me back to my childhood when we would always go to baseball games and play catch in the yard. I’m glad that we still have this between us, because I’m afraid that we would continue to drift apart if not for the common ground that we share in love for sports.

To say that sports were an integral part of my life as a kid would be an understatement. At the time, I didn’t think much of what was going on and how it would impact my life down the road, but now that I’m older, I’m able to take a retrospective look back down memory lane, and see how important sports were when it came to shaping who I am to this day. The friends I made, the memories I created, and the lessons I learned are all a part of who I am to this day, and I can’t be more thankful for it all, and I am 110% sure that it all will continue to be a part of me for the rest of my life.

[csrgood]

Meet the Inspirational Leader of UN Women

HP Inc. Garage blog

By Angela Matusik

When Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka was a young girl in South Africa, she saw firsthand what fearless women could do. “The women in my community were leading in the times of apartheid, in very risky situations,” she recalls. “They were the ones that went out when the police were repressing people, and the men were running to hide.”

The South African politician, activist, and executive director of UN Women, Mlambo-Ngcuka has devoted her career to issues of human rights, equality, and social justice, both in the public and private sectors. She has declared 2020 “a year for women” with her “Generation Equality” initiative. The intent is to focus on the benefits of gender equality, not only for women and girls, “but for everyone whose lives will be changed by a fairer world,” she says. 

If governments, humanitarian organizations, and global activists could wave a magic wand and drastically change the fates of millions of women all over the world, they would have to wish for one thing: an education for each of them. It’s the biggest game-changer for women in the developing world, beyond access to basics such as safe housing, clean water, and healthcare. 

“When you create opportunity for women, you actually unleash a force for good,” Mlambo-Ngcuka says. “Working with women introduces additional power that makes the world a better place.”

Mlambo-Ngcuka reflected on the recently-opened HP LIFE Centers in the municipality of Huixquilucan in greater Mexico City, and the municipalities of Zapopan and Jocotepec in Jalisco state, the fruition of a key partnership announced last fall between HP and the United Nations. HP provided technology grants to these centers, where women can learn digital literacy and job-building skills through the HP Foundation’s free online learning platform, HP LIFE.

“Education is a fundamental human right and essential to achieve gender equality,” says Michele Malejki, global head of sustainability and social impact programs at HP. “The collaboration with UN Women’s Second Chance Education program will empower thousands of women and girls by providing direct access to 21st Century skills that support employment, entrepreneurship, and economic opportunities.” 

This month, the world marks International Women’s Day on March 8 and brings into the spotlight the disparities in access to education, training, and jobs that billions of women still face. 

It’s one of the reasons that HP is also partnering with UN Women under UN Women’s Second Chance Education Initiative, with support from BHP Foundation, to expand digital learning opportunities for women and girls in five African countries: Senegal, South Africa, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Morocco. 

Mlambo-Ngcuka is a committed partner of HP and is helping the company make progress toward its goal of enabling better learning outcomes for 100 million people by 2025.

“When you think of a leader, certain qualities often come to mind: focused, intelligent, and impactful, to name a few,” HP’s Malejki says. “Executive Phumzile embodies all of these and brings purpose-driven, authentic leadership to UN Women. We couldn’t be more proud to partner with her and are excited by what’s to come.”

The Garage caught up with Mlambo-Ngcuka in New York.

You’ve had such an amazing life as an advocate, politician, leader — always advancing equality and opportunity. How did this come to be your passion and purpose?

At a very young age, I was exposed to the power of community work. My mother was a community worker, and she ran literacy classes at home. I was surprised to see that the women, which I had known in my community, could not read or write. Because for me, they were already role models. I wanted to help provide them with additional skills so they could become more impactful people in society.

Growing up in South Africa, what role did women play in the leadership you witnessed?

Women’s leadership was always something to marvel, especially when you see it happen in very risky situations in South Africa. They were the ones that went out when the police were killing and repressing people… The women would just go out there and stand in front of the police fence and face them, and demand for the police to leave their children. That courage was just amazing and it made you feel that, ‘When I grow up, I want to be that woman too.’

Tell us about the organization you lead now, UN Women.

Well, UN Women is the agency of the United Nations that is responsible for advancing gender equality. We work with member states to help them either deal with the laws that discriminate against women or put in place laws that will advance gender equality. We deal with the whole United Nation system in order to ensure that our sister agencies are doing their bits because they also have expertise that we don't have. We pilot programs in the field to check that the policies that we're pushing on member states actually work. We test them and we are then able to promote them because we have seen for ourselves that the policies are working.

What sort of challenges do women face when it comes to being able to pursue the career of their choice?

I have to say, first, that in the last 25 years, especially, girls’ education has advanced a lot. Member states have invested a lot in girls’ education, especially, in the countries that started at the bottom. In most countries, we saw girls enrollment and presence in school reaching parity with boys. In some it even exceeded it. 

However, even with all that effort, there are 263 million girls who are out of school. That means that they are likely to marry too early, because if they are not at school, they are likely not just to be at home. There are girls who are unable to take care of their health needs and the health needs of their family who do not have the means to contribute to the economy to support themselves. As a result, they depend on partners who sometimes, and most of the time, actually, abuse them.

How do your programs help?

One of the reasons why we appreciate the partnership that we have with HP is that it brings investment. It provides second chance education for girls who otherwise would have dropped out of school. It provides learning to earn because in some cases, the girls are already young women and not children that can sit in a classroom. We also are able to introduce and expose girls to technology. 

What role does technology play?

Well, technology can be an equalizer, but it’s not automatic. Technology also can be a discriminator. Those who have it will advance much further and widen the gap between the technology haves and the technology have-nots. If you just introduce technology without hand holding those who are likely to be left behind, there's always a risk that you’ll make the inequality worse.

How do the HP LIFE Centers help with that?

They provide us with an opportunity to leapfrog women into the 21st Century in a place where we can use content that is already tried and tested. We are seeing that, especially, in the program in Mexico. The women who are participating in the program are really gaining power. And because HP LIFE is also online, it can be accessed by many people all over the world. It gives us the potential to scale much more quickly and creates a community of best practices. Our responsibility is then to organize people, women, and to make them aware of this opportunity, to support and accompany them in their journey. 

Why is it important to invest in this work?

There are as many as 500 million women between the ages of 15 and 24 who are illiterate. They are young enough to have a long life ahead of them, so you cannot give up on them. It's important to invest in them. I have seen women who have had a second chance education become community workers, learning to move in their community with newly gained skills that help other mothers to look after their own children. For example, they can teach people in the community about nutrition and the importance of boiling water.

Read about six more inspiring leaders who are making human rights their everyday mission.

source: https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/43946-Meet-the-Inspirational-Leader-of-UN-Women?tracking_source=rss

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often said, "God laughs when humans think." What we want is not God's

laughter, but everyone who sees our efforts will be very sincere and

smile from the heart, into the stage of society, from family, friends,

work. There are many pressures on many aspects. The word struggle needs to be interpreted in a lifetime!(This is recommended for everyone to learn a good website for CCIE routing and switching, security, big data, etc.)At

one o'clock this morning, I kicked the ball back to the lab. I will

talk about mpls in the afternoon. Although I am already familiar with

it, I still want to see if there are any new ideas. So I have prepared

the course. I am ready to go back to rest at two o'clock. I

went to the np classroom to inspect it and found that the movie-time

was not over yet. In the last row, there was a student who was looking

at it. He just played very tired with us. He should have rested early

and prepare for tomorrow's experiment. Why is this time still? When I watched the movie, I called him to the elevator and chatted with him.

This

student has been coming for several months, the experiment is also

knocking, and I have finished it all over, but I have forgotten it when I

look back. He told me that I am confused. I don’t know how to learn. I

told him that your fundamental problem is that you have not studied. Stress and determination to solve problems.

What

is the pressure of learning, I can't use words to convey this pressure

to everyone, because you don't feel it, you may have no work experience,

you haven't experienced it in society, or you may have been in a good

position. Thinking that learning is a very easy process. Some

students put their jobs into the post after they finished the exam. At

the beginning, they thought of themselves very high. They thought that

it was ccie, and they could enjoy higher rewards. When they really

encountered practical problems, they couldn’t help themselves. The

sub-psychological gap has come out. I dare not face such a situation. I

dare not face all kinds of challenges. I hope that like the school,

someone will explain patiently to you. Someone will teach you step by

step. In short, for yourself. The identification of ability has been reduced to a minimum.

I

am very pleased that the students can cherish the hard-won learning and

examination expenses. I am very pleased to see the students busy all

day and see them all in the lab to solve a problem. They have a passion for technology and they are not just for a paper certificate. But

objectively speaking, without this certificate, they may not be able to

encounter the job opportunities and project opportunities they are

eager for. CCIE

Labs popular one sentence, ccie is nothing but ***, learn from it, ccie

itself can not mean that you have any value, a pass and a fail are not

the evaluation criteria of your ability, your value is reflected in you

can bear How much responsibility, your ability is reflected in how much you have resolved and how to solve problems. Without

the pressure of learning, there will be no strong desire for knowledge

in the heart, there will be no continuous learning passion, and without

the determination to solve the problem, there will be no external

obstacles and still unswervingly cut. Under

the belief of ccie, it is even more impossible to have practical

actions to meet difficulties when encountering difficulties. I

don't continually hone myself from the laboratory stage and exercise my

ability to solve problems. Even after I finish the exam, I can only

stay at the lowest level of technology for a long time.

My

undergraduate degree in chemistry is chemistry. I have been

experimenting with bottles and cans for four years. After graduation, I

entered the market with a mentality of finding money-making shortcuts,

doing real estate brokerage, doing futures brokerage, doing food sales,

and opening my own computer company. There

is always no way to make a lot of money. Sometimes the income of a

month is only 600 yuan. Later, there is no income for a long time. At

that time, I was particularly afraid of others asking for dinner, and it

was a good friend to eat, and I was too embarrassed to pay the bill. One voice is unsatisfactory. Second, if you want to pay back, you may have to be hungry this month.

Solving

life problems has become the first headline. I have chosen to take the

technical route honestly. After all, there is still a hobby. At

that time, the news channel was not smooth. I looked for job

advertisements to see what skills I needed for my position. At the

beginning of 2000, mcse was not bad. I spent two months reading books at

home all day, looking for an old PC to do experiments. Mcse's

six exams were smashed down. The scores for each exam were 70-80, and

the time was often not enough. The strange guy next to him was half an

hour old, and always had more than 90 points. He began to know that

there was a bible. thing. My

contribution has paid off, I started to have the first IT job, more

than 4k, but fortunately I didn't find bible to cope with the

complicated situation in my work. At that time, the superstition of mcse

was that the network problem in the company had mcse. Can screw up.

During

the work, I heard that the value of ccna for an hour is 1,500 yuan. It

is just a static route on a cisco router. I did not hesitate to report

ccna. I learned a few months and came into contact with the legendary

router switch. I am familiar with each other. An

interface command, knowing that ccie is the highest certification in

the network world, and also participated in several product conferences

by ccie with a very adoring attitude. The

ccna exam passed smoothly. I also started my postgraduate course in

communication engineering. I feel that I am returning to a state of

technical fanaticism. There is nothing to stop my thirst for knowledge.

In

2001, the company transferred to other projects, and I was put into the

job hunting army. This job advertisement described the requirements of

some positions as ccnp first. So I bought several textbooks from the

postal version and gave myself two months. I stayed at home and watched it day and night. Closed

door is the taste of this car, because there is no equipment, you can

only memorize the hard back, but it is to exercise your memory, the

other is boson, constantly doing, find out the problem and read the book

again, then one by one, every time Taking

a deep breath, shivering and submitting, and seeing the results passed,

I am very pleased to feel that I can afford this 1000 yuan per door. The

worst is cit, I can't believe it can, I have all the analysis of the

phenomenon of equipment operation I got from books, switches and routers

are two sets of instructions, in addition to rote memorization or rote

memorization.

After

finishing the test, I received a telephone interview when I was

applying for a job. The company has a Unicom project. One of the nodes'

equipment has been sent to the site, but no engineer has debugged it. I

asked if I have touched 36xx, 72xx, and the job opportunity is At hand, I can only say that I have touched my head and can handle it. I think I can get an np in two weeks. Can I make a 36 for two nights? The

ability is forced out, depending on whether you have such

determination, I have turned the relevant content of the cisco document

CD several times, and drilled on the spot, only encountered a little

trouble on the e1 line, but also recognized the real cisco project. project. After the equipment was commissioned, it entered the company smoothly. Because the company is a cisco partner, my technical resources are enriched.

Ccie

is the Everest in my mind, sacred, sublime, out of reach, in order to

prepare for the written test, I have made a boson's question to the end

of the day, the forum has spread more than 60 points boson questions, no

problem through the written test, 2002 At

the beginning of the year, tk hasn't come out yet, or I didn't find it.

The whole written test preparation process is to turn over all kinds of

IE books. I have to find various opportunities to practice equipment in

my work. Proud for a while. With

more and more work experience, I feel that I am more and more eager for

ccie. To a certain extent, it is a synonym for technical status and

technical capital. In

mid-2003, the validity period of the one-and-a-half-year written test

was coming soon, and the position could not be dropped. The status of

the incumbent did not allow me to guarantee the status of study. I chose

to quit my original job and go to the training school to prepare for

the exam. I left the company on July 15. When I arrived at my wife's home in Kunming, I had to self-study for a month to prove my ability in the cisco experiment. This

month, 8 hours a day is spent in the Internet cafe, I took a notebook,

became a different kind of Internet cafes, surrounded by the fiery

atmosphere of "legendary", the boss curiously looked at me alone to join

the cisco e-learning From

ospf to bgp, one experiment is done. The experiment of e-learning is

basically two hours. After two hours, the disconnection must be

continued. My request for myself is to spend four hours to solve an

experiment, and Save all experimental experimental configurations and then digest them.

I

arrived at the school on August 15th. After one month of exams, in

order to maximize my input and reduce the interference of other factors,

I chose to sleep during the day, listen to the teacher's explanations

and attacks at night, do experiments late at night, listen to myself

late at night. The

keyboard sound is very enchanting in the environment of my choice. I

joked with a student in the dormitory that we can rent a bed together,

sleep during the day, and I sleep at night. Before accepting an exam, I received an error-added attack. I lost my body and lost my body. What went wrong? I

feel that the whole systemized thing has not been straightened out. I

have been busy experimenting with experiments, but I have not absorbed

their analysis and understanding of the problem from the teachers and

the former students, especially the troubleshooting ideas. Later, the

attack class, I have I am very active to go to the stage and tell my own understanding to find out my own problems.

What

kind of environment is needed for learning, in all fairness, all

external conditions are second, or a sentence, do you have the pressure

to learn, the passion for learning, the determination to learn, and the

perseverance of learning. Teachers

can only teach you methods more often, give you more experience, he

can't replace your thinking, can't decide your future. If

a teacher answers all the questions of the students, he will harm the

students, and he will lead the students to blindly believe and blindly

rely on them. Conversely,

if the student is superstitious, superstitious, superstitious, he loses

the ability to think independently and loses the ability to solve

problems independently. I think this is equivalent to losing the ability

to continue to improve technically. Without

such ability, there is no such thing as a foothold in the IT world. At

best, it is only the general role of typing workers and porters. (I will repeat the repetitive pre-sales bidding called the typewriter, and the after-sales equipment is called the porter).

We

should train more independent people, especially people. We must

encourage students to reach out to more unknown areas, to touch all

kinds of difficult problems, to challenge all ready-made answers, to

discover their own learning desires and learning. Ability, to find problems, you should do experiments to verify, find information to understand. For

those who think that the training school environment is superior, the

solution is perfect, and that they think that they have excess time and

more difficulties when they come to work, the teacher should use the

whip to draw with the stick. Every

student should have a deep sense of crisis all the time, feel the

cruelty in the workplace, feel the end of being eliminated, and such an

environment is a truly honed environment.

I

don't believe in fate, but I agree that only paying will pay off. I

think every one in front of me is a path to change your destiny. As long

as you are willing to go, as long as you don't give up. My

ccie exam failed for the first time, and my mentality was adjusted for a

week. I don’t think that God would let me pass. It must be that I have

to pay more. Due

to the actual needs in the work, I returned to Kunming after the first

ccie test failed, and started the experiment on safety aspects such as

*** and pix. Later, I also did experiments on mpls, multicast, etc. . I don't want the value of ccie to be destroyed. I don't want to be eliminated, so I am very diligent. Heaven should be rewarded! As

of July 2004, I have tested two IE. In the lab, I am not the most

difficult person, a comrade in the sp lab named Li, the whole sp

preparation period, because of gastroenteritis, drinking water only

every day Can

drink hot water, eat only white porridge, and after a few months of

suffering, I can't bear to let him step into the examination room. The

establishment and examination of the sp lab is a process from scratch.

Each version is returned by itself. The workload of the entire exam

preparation can be imagined. Every day, the task of iron is set. When you sleep, no one wants to be lazy and enjoy the results. Everyone wants to go back to the new questions. The good brothers who are preparing for the war are with us. This is the

network we talk about. This is the source of strength that we dare to

face the difficulties. Many

students entered different jobs after the test, but they always kept in

touch, including contact with the school. Ccie is a very modest, united

and grateful group of people. In the above case, I told the student for three hours. The sentence

summarized by this student also made me remember that "Do not take

advantage of the big loss." If you graduated into a stable unit, you It

is cheap, but it loses the motivation to continue to struggle; if you

don’t think about it now, you get all the versions of the solution from

the teacher. The answer to all the questions is that you are taking

advantage of it, but you lose it. Thinking about the ability to continue to explore knowledge...I want to tell you that if you don't plan for future work in the current

learning process, if you still have a relaxed and learned learning

attitude, if you only expect others to be, then your ccie dream. It

will be nowhere in sight, and the ccie certificate you get will be

worthless, and you will not be able to withstand the impact of actual

work. From the first day of the training school, everyone should abandon all

external interference, take the determination to get ccie and create a

real ccie value, borrow a netizen's words: "Huangsha hundred wars wear

gold armor, do not break Loulan Not at all!" I hope that after all your efforts, you will become an influential person in the online world.

[spotoccie-blog]

How to grow into a real CCIE

Now everyone may be nothing, but time will change a lot of things, maybe you are still a student today or just a common technology, then what do you want tomorrow? I have learned a word since childhood: struggle! But what is the struggle? Give yourself a minute to think about this! Everyone often said, "God laughs when humans think." What we want is not God's laughter, but everyone who sees our efforts will be very sincere and smile from the heart, into the stage of society, from family, friends, work. There are many pressures on many aspects. The word struggle needs to be interpreted in a lifetime! (This is recommended for everyone to learn a good website for CCIE routing and switching, security, big data, etc.) At one o'clock this morning, I kicked the ball back to the lab. I will talk about mpls in the afternoon. Although I am already familiar with it, I still want to see if there are any new ideas. So I have prepared the course. I am ready to go back to rest at two o'clock. I went to the np classroom to inspect it and found that the movie-time was not over yet. In the last row, there was a student who was looking at it. He just played very tired with us. He should have rested early and prepare for tomorrow's experiment. Why is this time still? When I watched the movie, I called him to the elevator and chatted with him. This student has been coming for several months, the experiment is also knocking, and I have finished it all over, but I have forgotten it when I look back. He told me that I am confused. I don’t know how to learn. I told him that your fundamental problem is that you have not studied. Stress and determination to solve problems. What is the pressure of learning, I can't use words to convey this pressure to everyone, because you don't feel it, you may have no work experience, you haven't experienced it in society, or you may have been in a good position. Thinking that learning is a very easy process. Some students put their jobs into the post after they finished the exam. At the beginning, they thought of themselves very high. They thought that it was ccie, and they could enjoy higher rewards. When they really encountered practical problems, they couldn’t help themselves. The sub-psychological gap has come out. I dare not face such a situation. I dare not face all kinds of challenges. I hope that like the school, someone will explain patiently to you. Someone will teach you step by step. In short, for yourself. The identification of ability has been reduced to a minimum. I am very pleased that the students can cherish the hard-won learning and examination expenses. I am very pleased to see the students busy all day and see them all in the lab to solve a problem. They have a passion for technology and they are not just for a paper certificate. But objectively speaking, without this certificate, they may not be able to encounter the job opportunities and project opportunities they are eager for. CCIE Labs popular one sentence, ccie is nothing but ***, learn from it, ccie itself can not mean that you have any value, a pass and a fail are not the evaluation criteria of your ability, your value is reflected in you can bear How much responsibility, your ability is reflected in how much you have resolved and how to solve problems. Without the pressure of learning, there will be no strong desire for knowledge in the heart, there will be no continuous learning passion, and without the determination to solve the problem, there will be no external obstacles and still unswervingly cut. Under the belief of ccie, it is even more impossible to have practical actions to meet difficulties when encountering difficulties. I don't continually hone myself from the laboratory stage and exercise my ability to solve problems. Even after I finish the exam, I can only stay at the lowest level of technology for a long time. My undergraduate degree in chemistry is chemistry. I have been experimenting with bottles and cans for four years. After graduation, I entered the market with a mentality of finding money-making shortcuts, doing real estate brokerage, doing futures brokerage, doing food sales, and opening my own computer company. There is always no way to make a lot of money. Sometimes the income of a month is only 600 yuan. Later, there is no income for a long time. At that time, I was particularly afraid of others asking for dinner, and it was a good friend to eat, and I was too embarrassed to pay the bill. One voice is unsatisfactory. Second, if you want to pay back, you may have to be hungry this month. Solving life problems has become the first headline. I have chosen to take the technical route honestly. After all, there is still a hobby. At that time, the news channel was not smooth. I looked for job advertisements to see what skills I needed for my position. At the beginning of 2000, mcse was not bad. I spent two months reading books at home all day, looking for an old PC to do experiments. Mcse's six exams were smashed down. The scores for each exam were 70-80, and the time was often not enough. The strange guy next to him was half an hour old, and always had more than 90 points. He began to know that there was a bible. thing. My contribution has paid off, I started to have the first IT job, more than 4k, but fortunately I didn't find bible to cope with the complicated situation in my work. At that time, the superstition of mcse was that the network problem in the company had mcse. Can screw up. During the work, I heard that the value of ccna for an hour is 1,500 yuan. It is just a static route on a cisco router. I did not hesitate to report ccna. I learned a few months and came into contact with the legendary router switch. I am familiar with each other. An interface command, knowing that ccie is the highest certification in the network world, and also participated in several product conferences by ccie with a very adoring attitude. The ccna exam passed smoothly. I also started my postgraduate course in communication engineering. I feel that I am returning to a state of technical fanaticism. There is nothing to stop my thirst for knowledge. In 2001, the company transferred to other projects, and I was put into the job hunting army. This job advertisement described the requirements of some positions as ccnp first. So I bought several textbooks from the postal version and gave myself two months. I stayed at home and watched it day and night. Closed door is the taste of this car, because there is no equipment, you can only memorize the hard back, but it is to exercise your memory, the other is boson, constantly doing, find out the problem and read the book again, then one by one, every time Taking a deep breath, shivering and submitting, and seeing the results passed, I am very pleased to feel that I can afford this 1000 yuan per door. The worst is cit, I can't believe it can, I have all the analysis of the phenomenon of equipment operation I got from books, switches and routers are two sets of instructions, in addition to rote memorization or rote memorization. After finishing the test, I received a telephone interview when I was applying for a job. The company has a Unicom project. One of the nodes' equipment has been sent to the site, but no engineer has debugged it. I asked if I have touched 36xx, 72xx, and the job opportunity is At hand, I can only say that I have touched my head and can handle it. I think I can get an np in two weeks. Can I make a 36 for two nights? The ability is forced out, depending on whether you have such determination, I have turned the relevant content of the cisco document CD several times, and drilled on the spot, only encountered a little trouble on the e1 line, but also recognized the real cisco project. project. After the equipment was commissioned, it entered the company smoothly. Because the company is a cisco partner, my technical resources are enriched. Ccie is the Everest in my mind, sacred, sublime, out of reach, in order to prepare for the written test, I have made a boson's question to the end of the day, the forum has spread more than 60 points boson questions, no problem through the written test, 2002 At the beginning of the year, tk hasn't come out yet, or I didn't find it. The whole written test preparation process is to turn over all kinds of IE books. I have to find various opportunities to practice equipment in my work. Proud for a while. With more and more work experience, I feel that I am more and more eager for ccie. To a certain extent, it is a synonym for technical status and technical capital. In mid-2003, the validity period of the one-and-a-half-year written test was coming soon, and the position could not be dropped. The status of the incumbent did not allow me to guarantee the status of study. I chose to quit my original job and go to the training school to prepare for the exam. I left the company on July 15. When I arrived at my wife's home in Kunming, I had to self-study for a month to prove my ability in the cisco experiment. This month, 8 hours a day is spent in the Internet cafe, I took a notebook, became a different kind of Internet cafes, surrounded by the fiery atmosphere of "legendary", the boss curiously looked at me alone to join the cisco e-learning From ospf to bgp, one experiment is done. The experiment of e-learning is basically two hours. After two hours, the disconnection must be continued. My request for myself is to spend four hours to solve an experiment, and Save all experimental experimental configurations and then digest them. I arrived at the school on August 15th. After one month of exams, in order to maximize my input and reduce the interference of other factors, I chose to sleep during the day, listen to the teacher's explanations and attacks at night, do experiments late at night, listen to myself late at night. The keyboard sound is very enchanting in the environment of my choice. I joked with a student in the dormitory that we can rent a bed together, sleep during the day, and I sleep at night. Before accepting an exam, I received an error-added attack. I lost my body and lost my body. What went wrong? I feel that the whole systemized thing has not been straightened out. I have been busy experimenting with experiments, but I have not absorbed their analysis and understanding of the problem from the teachers and the former students, especially the troubleshooting ideas. Later, the attack class, I have I am very active to go to the stage and tell my own understanding to find out my own problems. What kind of environment is needed for learning, in all fairness, all external conditions are second, or a sentence, do you have the pressure to learn, the passion for learning, the determination to learn, and the perseverance of learning. Teachers can only teach you methods more often, give you more experience, he can't replace your thinking, can't decide your future. If a teacher answers all the questions of the students, he will harm the students, and he will lead the students to blindly believe and blindly rely on them. Conversely, if the student is superstitious, superstitious, superstitious, he loses the ability to think independently and loses the ability to solve problems independently. I think this is equivalent to losing the ability to continue to improve technically. Without such ability, there is no such thing as a foothold in the IT world. At best, it is only the general role of typing workers and porters. (I will repeat the repetitive pre-sales bidding called the typewriter, and the after-sales equipment is called the porter). We should train more independent people, especially people. We must encourage students to reach out to more unknown areas, to touch all kinds of difficult problems, to challenge all ready-made answers, to discover their own learning desires and learning. Ability, to find problems, you should do experiments to verify, find information to understand. For those who think that the training school environment is superior, the solution is perfect, and that they think that they have excess time and more difficulties when they come to work, the teacher should use the whip to draw with the stick. Every student should have a deep sense of crisis all the time, feel the cruelty in the workplace, feel the end of being eliminated, and such an environment is a truly honed environment. I don't believe in fate, but I agree that only paying will pay off. I think every one in front of me is a path to change your destiny. As long as you are willing to go, as long as you don't give up. My ccie exam failed for the first time, and my mentality was adjusted for a week. I don’t think that God would let me pass. It must be that I have to pay more. Due to the actual needs in the work, I returned to Kunming after the first ccie test failed, and started the experiment on safety aspects such as *** and pix. Later, I also did experiments on mpls, multicast, etc. . I don't want the value of ccie to be destroyed. I don't want to be eliminated, so I am very diligent. Heaven should be rewarded! As of July 2004, I have tested two IE. In the lab, I am not the most difficult person, a comrade in the sp lab named Li, the whole sp preparation period, because of gastroenteritis, drinking water only every day Can drink hot water, eat only white porridge, and after a few months of suffering, I can't bear to let him step into the examination room. The establishment and examination of the sp lab is a process from scratch. Each version is returned by itself. The workload of the entire exam preparation can be imagined. Every day, the task of iron is set. When you sleep, no one wants to be lazy and enjoy the results. Everyone wants to go back to the new questions. The good brothers who are preparing for the war are with us. This is the network we talk about. This is the source of strength that we dare to face the difficulties. Many students entered different jobs after the test, but they always kept in touch, including contact with the school. Ccie is a very modest, united and grateful group of people. In the above case, I told the student for three hours. The sentence summarized by this student also made me remember that "Do not take advantage of the big loss." If you graduated into a stable unit, you It is cheap, but it loses the motivation to continue to struggle; if you don’t think about it now, you get all the versions of the solution from the teacher. The answer to all the questions is that you are taking advantage of it, but you lose it. Thinking about the ability to continue to explore knowledge... I want to tell you that if you don't plan for future work in the current learning process, if you still have a relaxed and learned learning attitude, if you only expect others to be, then your ccie dream. It will be nowhere in sight, and the ccie certificate you get will be worthless, and you will not be able to withstand the impact of actual work. From the first day of the training school, everyone should abandon all external interference, take the determination to get ccie and create a real ccie value, borrow a netizen's words: "Huangsha hundred wars wear gold armor, do not break Loulan Not at all!" I hope that after all your efforts, you will become an influential person in the online world.

[samuelpboswell]

CMWorld Interview: Path to 1M Monthly Readers Has No Shortcuts, Says J.P. Medved

In her introduction to The Ultimate Guide to Conquering Content Marketing, Content Marketing Institute’s Cathy McPhillips draws several commonalities between content marketing and video games: the interactivity, the trial-and-error learnings, the camradery.

But, while many marketers have their own personal “cheat codes” that help them gain an edge, there are no true hacks in content. Certain video games allow you to tap in a series of commands and gain invincibility, or jump ahead to the next level. Content marketers, however, cannot magically produce an audience or monetization out of thin air.

As the Content Director for Capterra, and also an avowed lover of gaming, J.P. Medved understands this reality. His company’s industry-specific blogs have grown to 1 million monthly readers, and it wasn’t because of any secret elixir.

Instead, Capterra’s success owes to a proven, adoptable strategy tethered to the fundamentals of organization, goals, promotion, and experimentation. Medved will explain this formula in-depth during his Content Marketing World session, Better Than Hacks and Schemes: A Proven Approach to Building Your Audience, and was also kind enough to share some insights with us ahead of the September event.    

Medved has a reputation for being sharply honest and entertaining, and those traits definitely came through during our interview with him. Keep reading to find his thoughts on silent content, scalability, documenting strategies, and content marketing lessons learned from his experience writing fiction.

  What does your role as Content Marketing Director at Capterra entail? What are your main areas of focus and key priorities?

My day-to-day as a Content Director involves a lot of email and meetings, at this point. We’ve grown to a team of nine writers, six of whom I manage directly, so a lot of my time is devoted to supporting them. I join monthly topic planning meetings with all of them, as well as frequent check-ins with the editors and the marketing folks that support the content we produce. I also now spend a fair amount of time in our analytics and various content management systems just checking in and tracking things.

As we’ve grown—and I suspect this is common in most roles—I’ve transitioned away from being a content producer, to being a content manager. I no longer write content myself, and we centralized editing early last year so I no longer edit individual pieces either. Instead I spend more time coordinating long-term content plans and calendars with other teams in the business, managing content experiments or helping new projects get off the ground, and working with the folks on my team to help advance their career goals.

  Why should content marketers beware of “hacks” and shortcuts when it comes to growing their audience and impact?

The content marketing world, and the digital marketing space more generally, loves the idea of the Cinderella story. That blog that hits everything just right and experiences exponential, “hockey stick” growth and also there’s a royal wedding involved somehow. But our experience, and that of the vast majority of successful content marketing operations I’m aware of, is actually a lot more boring.

Jimmy Daley of the great animalz.co blog calls it “silent content;” that company that has just been plugging away and producing and refining great content for years, and grown a consistent, large audience and strong search position.  

With Capterra’s content, we’ve grown to a million readers a month, writing in an ostensibly boring, B2B software space, and we never had a breakout “viral” hit, or flashy media coverage, or exponential traffic growth (it’s all been linear). We’ve just been working away at it since 2013, publishing consistently and getting a little bit better each month.

I think if you waste all your time and energy chasing new “hacks” and shortcuts sold to you by whatever case study is making the rounds on YouMoz that week, you never get really good at the fundamentals of content marketing; the block-and-tackle of creating and promoting really great, helpful—if unassuming—content. As a result your growth, though it may experience the occasional spike, will actually slow and it’ll take you more time to build a sustainable traffic base in the long-run.

If you waste all your time and energy chasing new “hacks” & shortcuts, you never get really good at the fundamentals of content marketing. @rizzleJPizzle #CMWorld Click To Tweet

What are the most pivotal roles in developing an effective and scalable content strategy?

Scalability is still something we struggle with, having grown the team 6X in the last four years. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is actually to bring on/promote other managers earlier than you think you need it. Assuming an average writer production schedule of two, 1,500 word articles a week, a full-time manager can effectively manage and edit 3-4 writers. If they’re not editing (you bring in a centralized editing team, or use a round-robin method, or delegate to senior writers), that number goes up to 6-7.  

But you should have someone in place to help you well before you hit that number, not only to give them time to ramp-up and learn management skills, but also to allow you to plan effectively for new hires and content coverage growth.

The biggest lesson content I’ve learned is actually to bring on/promote other managers earlier than you think you need it. @rizzleJPizzle #CMWorld Click To Tweet

Why is experimentation so critical in the content creation process?

Most of our content fails. Like, over 90% of it. And that’s not at all uncommon in the content marketing world. If everyone knew the exact ingredients to a “viral” content piece, that’s all anyone would produce. But we don’t know. Pieces I think will do really well, more-often-than-not sink without a trace, and pieces that seem like throwaways can take off because they’ve tapped into some pent-up need in the marketplace of ideas.

So we try to test a lot. 50% or more of our content is trying out new topics or channels or formats, and the other 50% is either updating successful past content, or scaling up a content type that our previous testing has discovered works.

I differ here from the current received-wisdom in the content marketing industry. Right now it’s hip to say content marketers need to produce fewer pieces of longer, higher quality content. But I actually argue you should produce a higher volume of content (at least early on) to discover what “hits” with your particular audience, so you can scale that later.

Brian Dean of Backlinko is often the poster-child of the “publish less, publish higher-quality” model, and I love his content and he’s obviously been very successful. But might he have been more successful publishing weekly instead of monthly? Could he have sacrificed a little bit of length to experiment with a broader range of topic ideas earlier on before scaling the ones that worked? I think it’s possible.

You should produce a higher volume of content (at least early on) to discover what “hits” with your particular audience, so you can scale that later. @rizzleJPizzle #CMWorld Click To Tweet

What are the most common mistakes you see individuals and companies make when developing and launching a blog?

The biggest one is not taking content marketing seriously. That manifests itself in two major tactical mistakes: not hiring someone to do content full-time, and trying to squeeze direct revenue out of content in the first year.

If no one’s doing content full-time, then content just becomes a side project for someone at your company who may-or-may-not get to it once they finish their “real work” for the day. We tried this model for years and never got any traction with our content until someone owned it full-time and could devote themselves to thinking about it strategically and producing content consistently.

And you should not try to monetize your content in the first year. It will distort your writing, even if you think you can guard against it, and result in lower-quality, less helpful, more salesy content. Focus on creating content that is genuinely helpful for your audience first, and you will build reader trust for any kind of monetization scheme you want to implement later down the road.

If no one’s doing content full-time, then content just becomes a side project for someone at your company who may-or-may-not get to it once they finish their real work for the day. @rizzleJPizzle #CMWorld Click To Tweet

Why is it important for businesses to have a documented content strategy, as opposed to an intangible framework?

I think people get intimidated when you say, “You need to have a documented content strategy” because they envision this 30-page document written in corporate buzzwords that will take a month to create. But we literally started with nothing more than a two-page Word doc with some bullet points listing our short and long-term goals/metrics, the type of content we wanted to create, and who was responsible for what aspects.

The benefits to us of even something that basic have been huge. Actually writing it down forced us to think through the specifics and showed us where the gaps in our plan were, having agreed-upon goals and timelines upfront made for easier team and executive buy-in, and it gave us something to refer back to when we had questions about whether a new content idea fit our overall goals.

  What have you learned in your ‘side hustle’ as a fiction novelist that applies to your day job as a content marketer?

For writing fiction I spent a lot of time studying story structure, and plot architecture, and all the elements that make a story really “flow” and feel effortless to people reading it. What struck me is how many of the same principles apply to a content piece.

You want to start off with a strong “hook” that introduces an element of mystery and makes the reader want to know more, your “climax” needs to deliver a memorable experience or information, and the dénouement has to be satisfying. A novel that doesn’t tie up loose ends in the last few chapters is as unsatisfying as a blog post that doesn’t include a concrete next step or call to action in the last few paragraphs.

  Which speaker presentations are you looking forward to most at Content Marketing World 2018?

I love video games, so I’m excited to hear Jane Weedon of Twitch give her talk. I’ve also always been fascinated by the science behind online behavior, so Brian Massey’s talk on Behavioral Science for Content Marketers is high on my list as well.

Find Your Path to Content Marketing Greatness

Consistency, experimentation, and getting better each month: They might not be the stuff of Cinderella stories, but in the real world these techniques work and Medved’s team serves as living proof.

He is one of many CMWorld speakers who contributed to The Ultimate Guide to Conquering Content Marketing, so as we look forward to seeing them on stage in Cleveland, make sure to soak in all their awesome advice by clicking through the slides below:

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2018. | CMWorld Interview: Path to 1M Monthly Readers Has No Shortcuts, Says J.P. Medved | http://www.toprankblog.com

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CMWorld Interview: Path to 1M Monthly Readers Has No Shortcuts, Says J.P. Medved

In her introduction to The Ultimate Guide to Conquering Content Marketing, Content Marketing Institute’s Cathy McPhillips draws several commonalities between content marketing and video games: the interactivity, the trial-and-error learnings, the camradery.

But, while many marketers have their own personal “cheat codes” that help them gain an edge, there are no true hacks in content. Certain video games allow you to tap in a series of commands and gain invincibility, or jump ahead to the next level. Content marketers, however, cannot magically produce an audience or monetization out of thin air.

As the Content Director for Capterra, and also an avowed lover of gaming, J.P. Medved understands this reality. His company’s industry-specific blogs have grown to 1 million monthly readers, and it wasn’t because of any secret elixir.

Instead, Capterra’s success owes to a proven, adoptable strategy tethered to the fundamentals of organization, goals, promotion, and experimentation. Medved will explain this formula in-depth during his Content Marketing World session, Better Than Hacks and Schemes: A Proven Approach to Building Your Audience, and was also kind enough to share some insights with us ahead of the September event.    

Medved has a reputation for being sharply honest and entertaining, and those traits definitely came through during our interview with him. Keep reading to find his thoughts on silent content, scalability, documenting strategies, and content marketing lessons learned from his experience writing fiction.

  What does your role as Content Marketing Director at Capterra entail? What are your main areas of focus and key priorities?

My day-to-day as a Content Director involves a lot of email and meetings, at this point. We’ve grown to a team of nine writers, six of whom I manage directly, so a lot of my time is devoted to supporting them. I join monthly topic planning meetings with all of them, as well as frequent check-ins with the editors and the marketing folks that support the content we produce. I also now spend a fair amount of time in our analytics and various content management systems just checking in and tracking things.

As we’ve grown—and I suspect this is common in most roles—I’ve transitioned away from being a content producer, to being a content manager. I no longer write content myself, and we centralized editing early last year so I no longer edit individual pieces either. Instead I spend more time coordinating long-term content plans and calendars with other teams in the business, managing content experiments or helping new projects get off the ground, and working with the folks on my team to help advance their career goals.

  Why should content marketers beware of “hacks” and shortcuts when it comes to growing their audience and impact?

The content marketing world, and the digital marketing space more generally, loves the idea of the Cinderella story. That blog that hits everything just right and experiences exponential, “hockey stick” growth and also there’s a royal wedding involved somehow. But our experience, and that of the vast majority of successful content marketing operations I’m aware of, is actually a lot more boring.

Jimmy Daley of the great animalz.co blog calls it “silent content;” that company that has just been plugging away and producing and refining great content for years, and grown a consistent, large audience and strong search position.  

With Capterra’s content, we’ve grown to a million readers a month, writing in an ostensibly boring, B2B software space, and we never had a breakout “viral” hit, or flashy media coverage, or exponential traffic growth (it’s all been linear). We’ve just been working away at it since 2013, publishing consistently and getting a little bit better each month.

I think if you waste all your time and energy chasing new “hacks” and shortcuts sold to you by whatever case study is making the rounds on YouMoz that week, you never get really good at the fundamentals of content marketing; the block-and-tackle of creating and promoting really great, helpful—if unassuming—content. As a result your growth, though it may experience the occasional spike, will actually slow and it’ll take you more time to build a sustainable traffic base in the long-run.

If you waste all your time and energy chasing new “hacks” & shortcuts, you never get really good at the fundamentals of content marketing. @rizzleJPizzle #CMWorld Click To Tweet

What are the most pivotal roles in developing an effective and scalable content strategy?

Scalability is still something we struggle with, having grown the team 6X in the last four years. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is actually to bring on/promote other managers earlier than you think you need it. Assuming an average writer production schedule of two, 1,500 word articles a week, a full-time manager can effectively manage and edit 3-4 writers. If they’re not editing (you bring in a centralized editing team, or use a round-robin method, or delegate to senior writers), that number goes up to 6-7.  

But you should have someone in place to help you well before you hit that number, not only to give them time to ramp-up and learn management skills, but also to allow you to plan effectively for new hires and content coverage growth.

The biggest lesson content I’ve learned is actually to bring on/promote other managers earlier than you think you need it. @rizzleJPizzle #CMWorld Click To Tweet

Why is experimentation so critical in the content creation process?

Most of our content fails. Like, over 90% of it. And that’s not at all uncommon in the content marketing world. If everyone knew the exact ingredients to a “viral” content piece, that’s all anyone would produce. But we don’t know. Pieces I think will do really well, more-often-than-not sink without a trace, and pieces that seem like throwaways can take off because they’ve tapped into some pent-up need in the marketplace of ideas.

So we try to test a lot. 50% or more of our content is trying out new topics or channels or formats, and the other 50% is either updating successful past content, or scaling up a content type that our previous testing has discovered works.

I differ here from the current received-wisdom in the content marketing industry. Right now it’s hip to say content marketers need to produce fewer pieces of longer, higher quality content. But I actually argue you should produce a higher volume of content (at least early on) to discover what “hits” with your particular audience, so you can scale that later.

Brian Dean of Backlinko is often the poster-child of the “publish less, publish higher-quality” model, and I love his content and he’s obviously been very successful. But might he have been more successful publishing weekly instead of monthly? Could he have sacrificed a little bit of length to experiment with a broader range of topic ideas earlier on before scaling the ones that worked? I think it’s possible.

You should produce a higher volume of content (at least early on) to discover what “hits” with your particular audience, so you can scale that later. @rizzleJPizzle #CMWorld Click To Tweet

What are the most common mistakes you see individuals and companies make when developing and launching a blog?

The biggest one is not taking content marketing seriously. That manifests itself in two major tactical mistakes: not hiring someone to do content full-time, and trying to squeeze direct revenue out of content in the first year.

If no one’s doing content full-time, then content just becomes a side project for someone at your company who may-or-may-not get to it once they finish their “real work” for the day. We tried this model for years and never got any traction with our content until someone owned it full-time and could devote themselves to thinking about it strategically and producing content consistently.

And you should not try to monetize your content in the first year. It will distort your writing, even if you think you can guard against it, and result in lower-quality, less helpful, more salesy content. Focus on creating content that is genuinely helpful for your audience first, and you will build reader trust for any kind of monetization scheme you want to implement later down the road.

If no one’s doing content full-time, then content just becomes a side project for someone at your company who may-or-may-not get to it once they finish their real work for the day. @rizzleJPizzle #CMWorld Click To Tweet

Why is it important for businesses to have a documented content strategy, as opposed to an intangible framework?

I think people get intimidated when you say, “You need to have a documented content strategy” because they envision this 30-page document written in corporate buzzwords that will take a month to create. But we literally started with nothing more than a two-page Word doc with some bullet points listing our short and long-term goals/metrics, the type of content we wanted to create, and who was responsible for what aspects.

The benefits to us of even something that basic have been huge. Actually writing it down forced us to think through the specifics and showed us where the gaps in our plan were, having agreed-upon goals and timelines upfront made for easier team and executive buy-in, and it gave us something to refer back to when we had questions about whether a new content idea fit our overall goals.

  What have you learned in your ‘side hustle’ as a fiction novelist that applies to your day job as a content marketer?

For writing fiction I spent a lot of time studying story structure, and plot architecture, and all the elements that make a story really “flow” and feel effortless to people reading it. What struck me is how many of the same principles apply to a content piece.

You want to start off with a strong “hook” that introduces an element of mystery and makes the reader want to know more, your “climax” needs to deliver a memorable experience or information, and the dénouement has to be satisfying. A novel that doesn’t tie up loose ends in the last few chapters is as unsatisfying as a blog post that doesn’t include a concrete next step or call to action in the last few paragraphs.

  Which speaker presentations are you looking forward to most at Content Marketing World 2018?

I love video games, so I’m excited to hear Jane Weedon of Twitch give her talk. I’ve also always been fascinated by the science behind online behavior, so Brian Massey’s talk on Behavioral Science for Content Marketers is high on my list as well.

Find Your Path to Content Marketing Greatness

Consistency, experimentation, and getting better each month: They might not be the stuff of Cinderella stories, but in the real world these techniques work and Medved’s team serves as living proof.

He is one of many CMWorld speakers who contributed to The Ultimate Guide to Conquering Content Marketing, so as we look forward to seeing them on stage in Cleveland, make sure to soak in all their awesome advice by clicking through the slides below:

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

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